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PARERGA 



PARERGA: 

A COMPANION VOLUME 

TO 

UNDER THE CEDARS AND 
THE STARS 



BY 

CANON SHEEHAN, D.D. 

Author ©/""My New Curate," "Luke Delmege 
"Glenanaar," etc. 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 

LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 

1908 



|UBrlARYofCON«'i£3S 
1 Two Copies ><Ki— J. 

I FEB 25 I y08 



UM: 






I 



Copyright, 1908, by 
Longmans, Green, and Co. 

All Rights Reserved 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



CONTENTS 



PART I. AUTUMN 

Section I. (i-xxxi) 3 

Signs and Tokens — The Grey Friar — A Spring Scene 

— A Holiday — Unchanged Nature — Reveries — The 
Rapture of the Sea — In Vain — Once More — At Even- 
tide — Aurora — Sea-Fogs — Minute-Guns — The Fall 
of the Leaf — Phantoms — The Magic of Sleep — A 
Returned Exile — Death the Hope-Giver — Death Con- 
quered — Death the Eternal Law — " Why are ye 
Fearful?" — An Impartial but Unreasonable Thing — A 
Personal Diagnosis — A Secret Science — Other Sciences 

— Theology a Commonage — The Great Rebellion — 
An Unscientific Departure — Theology a Science — No 
Mystery in Medicine — Ultra Crepidam. 

Section II. (xxxii-lxxiii) 29 

The Great Mystery — The Inevitable — No Progress 
without Pain — Pain the Agent of Civilisation — Grades 
of Spirits — Inhabited Planets — The Altruism of Nature 

— Pain a Revelation — Sentence of Death — "Thy Will 
be Done!" — Winds and Rains — Welcome, Boreas! 

— The Storm-Rapture — The Drama of the Storm — 
Autumnal Rains — The Autumn of Life — Autumnal 
Acquaintances — A Great Success — But a Mediocrity — 
A Paradise and a Ruin — G«<3r^a e Passu — A Phil- 
osopher — Another Type — Early Education — Disillu- 
sion — Education and Experience — Justice Blind — A 
Fagin University — A Lurid Sunset — Cirrhi and Cumuli 

— An Evening-Star — My Doppel-Ganger' — An Apology 
for Anger — Res Caducae — Mocking the Eternal — In- 
finite Pity — A Distinction — A Good Shepherd — The 
Miracle of Adaptation — Evil the Root of Good — Two 
Books — A Gleam of Hope. 



CONTENTS 



Section III. (Ixxiv-ciii) 66 

The Orient — The Spirit of Curiosity — Symbols — A 
Vicious Circle — Romanticism — Wanted, a Grand Vizier 

— A Learned Candidate — A Progressionist — Haroun 
Disguised — A Fakir — Three Questions — Closing in 

— Impressions of Death — Pierre Loti — Disinterment 
of Williams — Shelley's Cremation — Grey Skies — Si- 
lence of Winter — Street Noises — Creameries — City 
Noises — World-Problems — Their Solution — Thf Lady 
of Shalott — The Poets' Mirror — Poets and Society — 
Carlyle — Hawthorne — Winter— O Altitudo. 



PART II. WINTER 

Section I. (i-xxx) 97 

The Narrowing of Winter — Lu and Ju — War Pro- 
claimed — The Higher Humanity — An Ally — A 
Machiavel — Remorse — An Academic Speech — The 
Crisis over — Science and Death — Irish Turf or African 
Yt\dx.— Ruhe Sanft — The Souls of Flowers — A Holy 
Riddle — A Mimosa — Guillotined — A Meteoric Shower 

— A Great Line — Contrasts — Shakspeare and the Sea 

— The Love of the Sea — A Modern Passion — Men 
and Books — A Student's Library — Counsels — Clean 
Books — New Parcels — Illustrations — Bindings — 
Ci siamo ! 

Section II. (xxxi-lviii) 125 

Shakspeare and Germany — Celts and Shakspeare — 
Great Lines — Shakspeare and the Stage — His Coarse- 
ness — Too Human — Heine on Shakspeare — No 
Abstractions in Shakspeare — Character Painting — Not 
a Creator — Shakspeare-Bacon Controversy — English 
Opinion — Lord Houghton — An Eclectic — The Drama 
Omnipotent — Jeu de Mots — Judge Webb's Opinion 

— A Cambridge M. A. — The Accent of Universities 

— A Dialogue — A Descent — Seneca and Shakspeare 

— Shakspeare and Jean Paul — Souls and Stars — Richter 
not Read Now — Faust and Freemasonry — Three Re- 
ligions — Humanism. 

Section III. (lix-xc) 153 

The Sense of Ridicule — The Angels' Laughter — The 
Puppet Show — Goethe — Schiller — The Home of Mys- 
ticism — The Home of Science — The Need of the Age 



CONTENTS 



— A Significant Group — The Tri'vium of Herbart — 
Instruction "versus Development — A Triptych — First 
Picture — Second Picture — Third Picture — Equality- 
Education— Discipline— £/f^«, Fugaces .' — The Rapids 

— Work — The Loom of Time- A Watch and a Vision 
—Christmas Eve — Midnight— The Constellations— The 
Angels at Bethlehem— Child and Mother— Days Length- 
ening — A Kleptomaniac — A Socialist — Compromise. 

PART III. SPRING 

Section I. (i-xxvii) 187 

A Glimpse of Spring — Spenser — A Poet's Grave — 
A Martyrology — Verdaguer — Herder — A Colossal 
Work — Not Popular — A Great Thought — Svpin- 
bume — The Verdict — Atalanta in Calydon — Servile 
Imitation — Death with Dignity — A Child-Poem — No 
Message — But of Paphos — Aloof — No Hero- Worship 
— Swinburne's Prose — Too Emphatic — Tantaene Irae? 

— Loch Torridon — Another View — Criticism Run 
Mad — A Selection — Redeeming Lines. 

Section II. (xxviii-lix) 212 

Goethe's Symbolum — Carlyle — Early Heroic Days 

— An Epic's Close — A Last Scene — The Prophet's 
Place — His Letters — His Fickleness — A Worshipper 

— His Ambition — His Hopes — Degenerate — Two 
Trials — And Temptations — Law is Law — The Char- 
iots of Life — Charioteers — A Fine Expression — "The 
Pendulum of Eternity " — A Cataclysm — The Indif- 
ference of the Universe — Stars and Graves — Contrasts 
of Life — A Defeat — Waste in Nature — Nature Silent 

— A Peep of Spring — Boreas Defied — Athletes — A 
Tournament — Discipline — A Disappointed Man. 

Section III. (Ix-lxxxvii) 239 

Associations — Waifs — Spring Idylls — Seed-Time — 
Grace and Gentleness — Man and Nature — Spinoza 

— Poets and Nature — Tennyson — A Great Lyric — 
Transformations — "The Wild Freshness of Morn- 
ing" — Recollections — Sentiment — An Artist First — 
Winged Thoughts — Taine on Tennyson — Tennyson's 
Colouring — Not Sublime — Art and Artlessness — 
Wordsworth' s Bathos — Word-PaintIng — Originality 

— Parallels not Plagiarism — Adaptations — His Mind 
Progress — Juvenilia — Drifting. 



viii CONTENTS 



PART IV. SUMMER 
Section I. (i-xxx) 265 

The Geocentric Theory — «'Ye Shall be as Gods!" 

— Clothes Philosophy — Life — Not Seraphs — Life 
a Compromise — No Perfection — Climatic Influences 

— Sunny Thoughts — Mother Nature — Colossi — 
Their Majesty — Painting and Song — Great Sayings 
— Their Tenderness — And Infinite Pity — M. Angelo's 
Generosity — Platonic Love — Beatrice — Other Heroines 

— Decadent Italy — Her Modern Poets — Carducci — 
A Degenerate Age — Goethe, Coryphseus — A Por- 
tentous Renascence — The Hymn to Satan — Lawless- 
ness — Science and Law — And Despair. 

Section II. (xxxi-lxiii) 289 

Jewish Laws — Purity before Learning — An Index — 
Present Poetry — The Second Law — Ceaseless Work 

— Harvest Labourers — Nemesis — "The Man with 
the Hoe" — Idleness — Some Great Ideal — Epitaphs — 
A Fall — A Lost Art — Parliament — Business Men 
— The Gallery — The House of Lords — Disillusion — 
An Unpleasant Trick — A Riddle — Dalmeny Park — 
Is it Patriotism? — Be not too Bold! — In the Depths 

— A Mammoth — Halls of Eblis — Cave Treasures — 
A Bear's Incisor — Prehistoric — Summer Flowers — 
" All Shall Go ! " — Unbelievers. 

Section III. (Ixiv-ci) 316 

A Stampede — A Circus to a Boy! — The Proces- 
sion — Fairyland — Childhood — A Rare Talent — The 
Child, the Enigma — Other Eyes than ours — Early 
Prejudices — The Wisdom of Experience — The Insane 

— Delusions — An Example — Chained in a Cellar — 
Only a Little Longer — "To Let" — Ridiculed — A 
Fragment of Eden — "What a Paradise!" — Mem- 
ory — Despondency — Loneliness — Alone ! — Winter 
Closes in — A Crisis — Back again — A Dramatic 
Entry — A Reverie — And then ? — The Secret of 
Happiness — Browning on Wordsworth — A World- 
Soul — The Erd-Geist of Goethe — Plagiarism — Natu- 
ralism — Heine on Goethe — Vanished — A Garden 
Dialogue. 



part I 

AUTUMN 



P A R E R G A 



AUTUMN 
Section I 



Again the silent, sombre, melancholy autumn 
days have come round ; and gently, almost im- 
perceptibly, the mighty Mother is 
preparing to disrobe all her children Tokens" 
for the sleep of the coming Winter. 
I dearly love those gentle autumn days, almost 
more than those of any other season. The grey 
lights, the hushed colours, the slow and solemn 
changes in leaf and fruit and tree and flower ; the 
clouds drifting before the south wind to-day — to- 
morrow poised in vast, cirrhous masses with sunlit 
skies between them; the cries of Nature — of 
lonely herons, beating up with heavy wings and 
long, spiderlike legs from river or fen, and uttering 
now and again a hoarse alarm-cry ; the shrieking of 
the swallows in the evening, as they gather far up 
in the sky and plan all their little arrangements for 
the coming migration ; the boom of the threshing- 
machine, caught high and low on the passing wind ; 
the shrill cry of some singing bird, who has lost the 
glorious gift of song, with which he thrilled all 
nature in the gladsome Springtime, — all speak of 
the general winding-up of the pageant and pride 
of the season ; and the contraction and closing-in 



PARERGA 



of the majestic forces that broke out in such lavish 
splendour during the Spring and Summer of the 
year. 

II 

Yes ! The garish lights and the jocund music 

are gone; the laughing children, who tossed the 

daisies and wove the cowslips of 

rey riar. gpj.jj^g^ ^^^ ^^^ maidens who crowned 

themselves with the roses of Summer are gone ; 
and the cowled and grey-habited, but gentle friar, 
Autumn, has just come out from the sidewings on 
to the stage. I have chosen that simile because I 
like monks. I like their dress, so flowing, so 
graceful and majestic ; I like the falling scapular : 
I like the folded hands ; I like the placid face, un- 
furrowed by care and undisturbed by passion ; I 
like the solemn eyes that seem to regard us " from 
Eternity's stillness " ; I like the hood that frames 
the placid face. And so, too, I like this grey monk. 
Autumn, that comes to us so quietly, so solemnly, 
without noise or laughter, except the soughing of 
gentle winds through the changing foliage of the 
trees, or such sounds as I have already described, 
and which seem to be quite in unison with the decay 
and demise of the year. 



Ill 

Not that I complain of Spring or Summer ! 

Oh, no ! I have such vivid recollections of the first 

daisy, or the first violet, of the snow- 

pnng cene. (^^op and lily-of-the-valley, that I 

should be ungrateful to make odious preferences 



AUTUMN 5 



and comparisons. Mother Nature has never in 
her vast repositories anything more gracious or 
beautiful to show than when she hangs out her 
pink-and-white apple blossoms in the month of 
May, and, like trees and shrubs in a stereoscope, 
makes them stand forth with clear distinctness, each 
in its own place, till the whole garden seems snowed 
over with those frail and delicate flower-wafers ; and 
the background is an unlimited vista of blossom till 
it breaks against the ranker foliage of the forest 
trees. And, when you add music to colour, and 
hear from the thick recesses of massed and fragrant 
bloom, or from the heart of a lilac-tree with its beau- 
tiful hyacinthine blossoms, or from beneath the 
drooping gold of the laburnum, the fluted melody 
of thrush or ousel, you think that there can be but 
one step from this to Paradise, and that one need 
not be surprised if he saw the angels walking hand- 
in-hand along the fragrant avenue, or standing, in 
tranced worship, beneath the trees of Eden. 



IV 

And I have pleasant memories, too, of a short 
holiday which I took this Summer. I had not been 
to this seaside village for thirty-five ^ „ ,.j 

o , , -^ , A Holiday. 

years — smce my student days; but 
I carried always with me the recollection of its one 
street, wind-swept and sloping down to where ab- 
ruptly rose, or seemed to rise from the sea, a naked 
island ; and just beyond, the white walls of the 
lighthouse. And I remembered, also, the windy 
mornings when we went forth to bathe, across the 
cliffs and down a dangerous winding path, to where 
in a sheltered bay enormous boulders lay prone, to 



PARERGA 



be lashed and washed by the huge waves that came 
rolling in from the deep sea-spaces. And I remem- 
bered the little trickling fountain half way down the 
cliff, where a tiny runlet started from the sandstone 
rock and fell into a natural basin ; and how cool 
and sweet it tasted to lips half-parched by the bitter 
and brackish waves. And there was one sheltered 
spot, where the flat face of a rock fronted the sea, 
and formed a kind of natural seat or lounge, where 
in my adolescence I read, and read, and read the 
livelong day ; and even hoped for rain and tem- 
pestuous weather that I might have the sea-cliffs 
and the sea all alone to myself. 



And now I found all unchanged, except myself. 

There was the same cliff, the same chasm, the same 

boulders and rocks. The little foun- 

Unchanged Na- ^^-^ ^f ^^^^^ ^^^^^ Sprang, as of old, 

from the sandstone, and was gath- 
ered into the hollow basin. A few feet of earth and 
shingle at the top of the cHff had fallen down ; and 
a new path had been made. And that was all. For 
there, too, was my old seat beneath the rock ; and 
to all appearance the same fragrant and perfumed 
purple heather, the same wild hemlock, with the 
little black star in the centre of the white disc ; the 
same yellow broom, that since has yielded me that 
most safe of all heart-tonics — sparteine. And was 
I changed .? Well, somewhat. I did not look at 
life with such tranquil and hopeful eyes as when I 
was a boy, hiding away from human observation 
there. But, I remember, the same poems pleased 
me then that please me to-day ; and the same ques- 



AUTUMN 



tions came up from the sea, and tortured me with 
their delightful iteration and persistence, — the same 
questions about life, and nature, and death, and im- 
mortality, to which I have found no answer as yet, 
except, of course, the emphatic and unwavering 
responses of Faith. 

VI 

I am not sure that the habit of day-dreaming, or 
reveries, is at all wholesome. But, like all opiates, 
it is very sweet and very tyrannical. 
At least I know that three or four 
of the morning hours after breakfast used to pass 
away almost unconsciously there in my smooth bed 
of heather beneath the rock. A little reading, a 
little observation, a little meditation on what I had 
read, and then — dream-pictures, such as seem to 
come in sleep, only that they never were grotesque 
or uncouth, or frightful — only shadows passing on 
and over the glistening surface of the sea as it slept 
beneath the warm rays of a midsummer sun. Then, 
suddenly, the mild face and wondering eyes of a 
sheep nibbling near me, or the shrill call of the 
young sea-gulls, beating up bravely in the wake of 
their stronger sires, or the swift whir and sharp cry 
of a black diver, would wake me up to read again, 
and pause again, and again go out into the happy 
Elysium of fair if fleeting dreams. Now and again 
the dark hull and streaming smoke of the funnel 
of some great liner would blot the fair round mirror 
of the sea ; and I used to grow impatient of the 
apparent slowness and painted stillness with which 
it moved toward the horizon. But all things end 
sometime or other. And the great deep would be 
unspotted and unflecked again. 



PARERGA 



VII 

One thing, however, I missed, — the rapture of 
the sea, — the keen, stinging pleasure the sounds 

and scents of the sea gave me when 
tle'sl^''""^' ^boy; Of course, it is age, -age 

with its dulled senses and percep- 
tions, age with its weakened nerves, age with its 
brain-power perhaps increased and developed, but 
with all its sentient faculties benumbed, and, alas ! 
controlled almost to the verge of extinction by that 
dread monitor. Experience. And nothing can give 
back "that wild freshness of morning." I see 
things with " larger, other eyes " than in youth. 
The problems of existence have loomed up greater 
and more formidable and more mysterious than 
ever. The problems of life are deeper, and their 
solution farther away. The single eye of youth 
that saw but the present has grown to a double 
vision that is blind to the present, but painfully 
sensitive to pictures thrown upon its field by the 
past and the future. " Knowledge has come, but 
wisdom lingers," — the wisdom of the child on the 
seashore, filling his ears with the music of the shells, 
and believing that he hears the roaring of the sea, 
when he only listens to the hot blood coursing 
through his own veins. 

VIII 

I whipped up my faculties to catch again that 
old, far-off, sweet enthusiasm and sense-intoxication 
of childhood. It was in vain. I 
called up the memories of the exul- 
tation I felt when the deep thunder of the waves 



AUTUMN 



smote my ears in childhood, and the scent of the 
seaweed was an elixir of Paradise. In vain ! The 
mighty element that intoxicated my senses in child- 
hood now seemed to steep me as in chloroform. I 
could dream, and dream, all day long. But I could 
not think ; and even reading became irksome. Once 
or twice I sought to arouse my faculties by writing 
verses. I failed. Ideas would not come; and I 
knew well it was of no use to solicit them, unless 
they came spontaneously. I contrived to jot down 
some lines which swept across memory from the 
night-sleeps. But that was all. I felt all the stupor, 
without the exhilaration, of an opiate. I began to 
wonder how Coleridge or Shelley felt under the in- 
fluence of laudanum ; and what strange power it 
gave them to reach such altitudes that no poet, with 
unsustained wings, could ever touch again. 



IX 

But twice at least during this fortnight's holiday, 
I was privileged to see a sudden and unexpected 
revelation of Nature's magnificence, _ 

1 /- 1 1 1 1 1 Ml r • Once more. 

and to reel the old thrill or surprise 
and delight which so often in childhood and youth 
made my pulses throb and my cheek grow pale. 
It seemed to me that Mother Nature was saying to 
herself: " This old poetic dreamer and admirer of 
mine has become so hebetated and outworn that he 



no longer recognises my loveliness and my power. 
He has gone after other loves — his speculations, 
his philosophy, his world of ideas. He does not 
want any longer such a material creature as I am. 
The larger and more ethereal spirits, that occupy 
the high altitudes where he is moving, have made 



lo PARERGA 



him turn away from me. Let me see if I can call 
him back to my side once more before he dies. 
Surely one victory over an old reasoner and world- 
observer, as well as idealist and dreamer, were worth 
a hundred easy conquests over the mind and heart 
of youth." And the dear old Mother did put forth 
all her arts of coquetry, and — succeeded. I had 
grown tired of the grey face of the sea, of that 
long, low line across the horizon, encompassing that 
dark, melancholy mirror, which seemed to reflect 
only the sadness of things, — the unplummeted 
deeps of the human heart, the undiscoverable se- 
crets of existence. And the thunder of the waves 
no longer smote my senses with delight, that was 
half fear, half love for the dread element that could 
seem so gentle and calm, but that bit with the fury 
of a serpent and smote as with the lightnings of 
gods. Once more, only once, the sea put forth her 
power, and clothed herself with a panoply of light, 
and dragged me a willing worshipper to her feet. 



X 

My bedroom overlooked the tiny artificial har- 
bour that was formed by two projecting piers ; and 
A ev ntid here, all day, boats and punts, yachts 

and hookers and fishing - smacks, 
lolled and tossed on the bosom of the tide. Every 
evening, too, just at seven o'clock, a group, or 
rather several groups, of bronzed and stalwart fish- 
ermen could be seen wending their way along the 
pier, laden with nets or cordage or baskets ; and 
one by one they got their fine, strong boats ready, 
whilst the women watched them, and young lads 
envied them, and groups of gaily clad girls ran along 



AUTUMN 



the pier as the boats pulled out from the harbour 
and got into the deep seas. Here a mizzen-sail was 
hoisted ; and one by one, at a few hundred yards' 
distance from each other, the boats glided softly 
away to the south and west, until sometimes their 
white sails seemed but feathers far out on the deep. 
There they dropped anchor, and put out their nets 
and lines to catch the treasures which Old Ocean 
drew into their hands. It was pretty and pictu- 
resque, especially when the sun was sinking softly 
in the west, and his great golden light suffused sky 
and sea and earth in a pale, yellow radiance. One 
would have wished them to sing the sailors' chorus, 
or some wild Gaelic melody ; but the Celt has not 
got over the shyness and silence of centuries as 
yet. 



XI 

Then one morning I awoke to hear the plash of 
oars, the rush of pulleys, and the loud voices of 
men and women beneath my win- 
dow. I rose up, flung on a dressing- 
gown, raised my blind, looked out, and exclaimed, 
" My God ! " The sun had well risen, and the 
whole face of the sea to the east was suffused with 
a soft, rosy radiance, so tender, so beautiful, that I 
could have almost wept for the thought of its eva- 
nescence. Across the gulf, too, the cliffs of Knock- 
adoon stood out transfigured in the morning glory ; 
for they were no longer frowning ramparts with 
deep purple embrasures and dark cobalt foundations, 
but battlemented walls, stained in light vermilion, 
and seeming, in the clear tracery of the morning 
splendour, transparent as the ruddy sky or the 
flushed face of the sea. Farther to the west, the 



12 PARERGA 



blending of colours had deepened, until, where 
the waves broke softly on the peaty strand, they 
were almost slate colour. But beneath my window 
the rosy radiance was cut clear through by the black 
lines of the piers and the dark hulls of the fishing- 
boats and the picturesque forms of men and women. 
These latter were busy in a Babel of tongues, chat- 
tering and bargaining for the silver fish which the 
men flung up unconcernedly from the holds of their 
boats. The whole village beside was asleep. Na- 
ture, with the wilfulness of a woman, was lavishing 
all this splendour without an eye to see it. The 
magnificent panorama had vanished when the lazy 
sleepers woke up, for pleasure or for profit, in the 
late hours of the morning. 



XII 

The next morning the same miracle took place. 
And I, like a penitent who was regretting his indif- 
ference, again woke up to see and 
^' admire. And then, as if satisfied with 

her triumph over me, she drew down a heavy, milky 
fog, that for three days and nights blotted out the 
heavens and the earth. It was so thick that the 
powerful light across the little strait was absolutely 
extinguished except for its lonely watchers on the 
island ; but all day long, and all night, came every 
minute the deep, mournful voice of the fogbell, 
muffled and sad, with a strange, funereal tone, that 
seemed to tell of wrecks and sea-ruins. The grass 
and heather and hyssop and hemlock on the hills 
were saturated with moisture ; and as I sat in my 
accustomed seat with my back to the rock, the 
waves at my feet only visible, I could hear, ever 



AUTUMN 13 



and anon, the foghorn of some vessel, deeply em- 
bedded in the thick folds of the mist, and the an- 
swering alarm from some spirit-ship farther out at 
sea. And sometimes quick spasms of sound would 
break in succession quite close to the shore, — inar- 
ticulate warnings of great peril, — until, like the 
gasps of an exhausted and terror-stricken creature, 
the voices would come repeated from farther and 
farther away, as the trembling ship tore in terror 
to the safety of the outer deeps. 

XIII 

And all day long at intervals of ten minutes, and 
then five minutes, the deep boom of the gun from 
the lightship at Daunt's Rock, ten 

., ° ^ ,j , 1 ^u Minute-guns. 

miles away, would echo along the 
shore, until one felt that men and their toyships 
were everywhere besieged by peril, and were calling 
to each other by gun and bell, and siren and horn, 
to beware. How powerless man is, and yet how 
great ! How insignificant, and yet how victorious ! 
How tremendous are the forces Nature brings to 
bear on his destruction, and yet how skilfully he 
conquers or evades them ! Once, in this deep fog, 
a great steamer did actually grind her keel against a 
sunken rock near shore. There was a moment's 
panic ; but she instantly sheered off, and passed 
safely out to sea. And all the time the lighthouse 
was flashing its ineffectual light into the very bosom 
of the mist ; and the great lever of the fogbell was 
being lifted by its powerful machinery up and down 
every minute to strike the mighty bell, whose tones 
sank in silence, absorbed in the night-fog, and 
scarcely struck the white walls of the enclosure 



PARERGA 



that ran down to the deep. Portia's reflection on 
the power of a tiny candle was reversed. The 
powers of darkness are greater than the powers of 
light, after all. 

XIV 

But this summer dream is obscuring my thoughts 
of the grey friar. Autumn, showing how dream- 
pictures are sometimes more powerful 
Leaf.^^^^ °^ *^^ ^^^^ realities; and how a sunny past 
will extinguish, even in memory, the 
facts and species of a sombre present. But I am soon 
recalled to life by one event after another, as if in 
some mysterious manner circumstances combined to 
force upon one's faculties all that is sad and melan- 
choly in life with all that is grey and sombre in 
Nature. For in some mysterious manner, it seems 
to be always in the autumn season, when Nature 
is manifesting its tendency to decay and death, 
that amongst human beings also, the dread symp- 
toms of sickness and dissolution become more ap- 
parent. There is a tradition that it is in the Fall 
of the year the sick and weakly drop silently away. 
It stands to reason. The vital powers of Nature, 
of which man is an integral part, are steadily low- 
ered, day by day, in the grey autumnal time ; and 
the human energies, that were buoyed up during 
the life-giving summer heat, tend to run down and 
become extinguished as the mercury falls in the 
double glass that marks heat and moisture ; and as 
the sap descends from leaves to stem, from stem 
to branch, from branch to trunk, until it sinks 
into the all-absorbing earth. 



AUTUMN 15 



XV 

And just now I notice that some pale phantoms, 
who used to pass me in the streets limping painfully 
along, or leaned up against the sunny 

,,&' . ^ • J 1 J- Phantoms. 

wall opposite my wmdow, have dis- 
appeared. They came forth from their stuffy sick- 
rooms, where they had vegetated during the Winter 
and early Spring; and like plants kept in a cellar, 
they brought forth the pallor of pain and sickness 
under the light of the all-powerful sun. And all 
day long they basked in the warmth and strength 
of his rays, until even their pale faces became 
slightly bronzed; and their thin hands assumed a 
tinge of healthy colour. And hope, the eternal 
angel, seemed to come back from his banishment ; 
and they could answer with a cheery smile : " Com- 
ing around a little, thank God ! I think I can pull 
through the Winter now 1 " And the passer-by, in 
the sublime hypocrisy of charity, would murmur : 
" Not a doubt about it ! You 're on the mending 
track at last ! " Oh, life, life ! what is it that makes 
a thing so worthless and evanescent seem of such 
supreme importance to poor mortals ? 

XVI 

Yes ! the phantoms have disappeared. The first 
grey fog, that came down with its smell of frost in 
the air, banished them to the gloom 
and monotony, the darkness and the sieep^*^^*^ °^ 
despondency, of the sick-chamber 
again. And I follow them in fancy. I see the dread 
round of daily and nightly suffering. I feel the 
hours go by, each laden with sighs — sighs in the 



PARERGA 



midnight for the first pale gleam of morning; sighs 
in the long hours of the day for the merciful oblivion 
of night. I see them toss and turn on their beds of 
agony, seeking only one thing, unconsciousness, but 
seeking that with a prayer that would, we imagine, 
coerce the eternal powers to grant the one great 
boon that mortals crave. Yes ! so are we consti- 
tuted ! There is no greater gift to mortals than the 
gift of unconsciousness. When Nature, racked and 
torn, refuses it, we seek to compel her by the pow- 
erful action of deadly poisons. Yes ! sleep, sleep, 
so powerful that it is most welcome when it most 
resembles Death, is the one thing that makes life 
tolerable. All waking pleasures are unavailing 
when they cannot be forgotten in sleep. 

XVII 

Here, for example, is a poor young girl who sat 

out during the warm days in the sunshine, eagerly 

grasping: every sunbeam to extract 

A returned Exile, p ^ .=> i-r t • a r 

rrom it a lire-elixir. A rew years 
ago, conscious of her great beauty, she almost 
spurned the flags of the village street, as she walked 
with springing step in all her Sunday finery, and 
knew that the eyes of many hungered after her. 
Then her own home became too small for her 
ambition. America alone was large enough for 
her desires. She went away, became a unit, an 
insignificant unit amongst millions, whose eyes, 
dazzled with the glare of gold, had no sight for 
her beauty. Then came sickness, sadness, a crav- 
ing for the old home, where she could at least die 
in peace, with friendly faces around her. She sat 
out during these few weeks, patient and sorrowful, 



AUTUMN 17 



her physical beauty etherealised by the dread dis- 
ease that was slowly eating away her life. She 
has disappeared. It is easy to imagine the rest. 
The eternal hacking cough, the night-sweats, the 
ever-growing weakness, the depression, the despair 
— the calling on God at the midnight hour to 
plunge her into the blessed forgetful ness of a 
dreamless sleep ! 

XVIII 

And yet, if one in mercy whispers even the name 
of death as the one hope-giver, she shudders, looks 
frightened, and weeps. She cries all 
night long for unconsciousness, for Hcje^-giver. 
sleep. But the unconsciousness of 
death is an unspeakable terror. Why this incon- 
sistency ? Is not death a blessed thing, — God's 
greatest and most beautiful angel, who comes to us 
so softly, and so gently unweaves the bands of flesh, 
and touches so quietly that wound that the very 
touch is an anaesthetic ; and gradually weakens and 
uncoils the springs of existence, so that when at last 
he touches the last frail thread, it snaps without pain, 
and the soul sinks into a languor that is a sweet prel- 
ude to the eternal rest? Why do men fear it? Is 
it the inertia of life that will not bear transmission ? 
Or the habit of life that will not bear being broken ? 
Or the dread of 

" The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 
No traveller returns " ? 

Or a foolish fear, as of children who see spectres 
everywhere, and will not walk on unknown land, 
lest unseen terrors should leap forth to paralyse or 
appal ? 



PARERGA 



XIX 

So thought Lord Bacon : " Men fear death 
as children fear to go in the dark ; and as that 
natural fear in children is increased 
Sfnquered. ^^^^ ^^^^s, SO is the Other." And 

again : " I have often thought upon 
death, and find it the least of all evils. All that is 
past is a dream ; and he that hopes or depends 
upon time coming, dreams waking." Reason argues 
against the fear of death and discountenances it. 
Religion laughs at it : " O Death, where is thy 
sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? " And yet, 
there seems to be but little use in arguing against 
it. Foolish men, who know so little, and do so 
much evil with that little knowledge, call it the 
" King of Terrors," as if we did not know, as the 
aforesaid Lord Bacon has already proved, that there 
is no passion that cannot conquer Death. '* Re- 
venge triumphs over it ; love slights it ; honour as- 
pireth to it ; grief flieth to it ; fear preoccupateth it ; 
nay, Seneca adds niceness and satiety. Think how 
often hast thou done the self-same things. It is not 
only the strong man, and the miserable man, but, 
even the weary man can wish to die" — that is, 
weary of doing the same thing over and over again. 



XX 

Perhaps, outside the magnificent hopes and prom- 
ises of religion, there is no greater, there is no 

sweeter anodyne of Death than the 
Eurnal'Law. reflection: It is the Law! Birth, 

reproduction, Death, — this is the 
programme of all things, sentient and insensible. 



AUTUMN 



19 



spiritual and material ; it is the unalterable decree 
in every kingdom, animal, vegetable, mineral. It 
is even the necessary law, if the universe is to con- 
tinue. Tithonus was wretched, because immortal. 
He was placed outside the pale of law, and hence, 
he craved Death. All must go. The type and 
species alone remain ; and these too must change 
in form in order to be permanent in reality. 

'* Nothing abides. The seas in delicate haze 
Go off; those mooned sands forsake their place ; 

And where they are shall other seas in turn 
Mow with their scythes of whiteness other bays. 

Lo, how the terraced towers and monstrous round 
Of league-long ramparts rise from out the ground 
With gardens in the clouds. Then all is gone. 
And Babylon is a memory and a mound. 

Observe the dew-drenched rose of Tyrian grain — 
A rose to-day. But you will ask in vain 
To-morrow what it is ; and yesterday 
It was the dust, the sunshine, and the rain. 

This bowl of milk, the pitch on yonder jar. 

Are strange and far-bound travellers come from far. 

This is a snow-flake that was once a flame, — 
The flame was once the fragment of a star." ^ 



XXI 

And whither all things go, we too are tending. 
Borne along on the river of Life, now fast, now 
slow, now gliding smoothly, and anon 
tossed hither and thither on the sur- ^a^fu[? ^^ 
face of ruffled and angry waters, there 
is no pause, no stay, no hiding under shady banks, 

^ Mallock's "Lucretius." 



20 PARERGA 



no retreating to forgotten and darkened coverts. 
The stream of humanity moves ever onwards to 
the great gulf, and we are borne with it. Let us 
not repine, nor fret at the inevitable. We are 
going the way of emperors and conquerors. 

" Thither the singers, and the Sages fare. 

Thither the great queens with their golden hair. 

Homer himself is there with all his songs ; 
And even my mighty Master's self is there. 

There too the knees that nursed you, and the clay 
That was a mother once, this many a day 

Have gone. Thither the King with crowned brows 
Goes, and the weaned child leads him on the way. 

Brother and friend, and art thou still averse 

To tread that road ? And will the way be worse 

For thee than them ? Dost thou disdain, or fear 
To tread the road of babes, and emperors ?" ^ 

XXII 

Yet it is hard to argue against the fear, especially 
with the young. So many passed by, and they 
. ^ . , chosen ! So many old and forlorn 

An Impartial L rr u J i 

but Unreason- creatures tor whom lite had no pleas- 
able Thmg. ^j.g^ because no hope, trembling on 
the verge, and yet apparently forgotten by the 
angel Death ! So many worthless creatures, whose 
lives do not contain a single utility, — nay, whose 
very existence seemed detrimental to every cause 
and individual with whom they came in contact; 
and lo ! Death passes them by, and leaves the 
barren fig-trees untouched ; and lays his heavy 
hand on some life, that was bourgeoning out in all 
fair promises of vast utility to itself and mankind. 

^ Mallock's •* Lucretius." 



AUTUMN 



So argues a second patient of mine, a young man, 
stricken with that dread disease, cancer. He is 
not impatient nor disconsolate. He is resigned. 
But he cannot understand. He is perplexed by 
the mystery of things. He has had his sentence of 
death duly passed on him ; and the numbered hours 
are fleeting swiftly by. But he is young. He 
clings to hope. The local doctor is on his holi- 
days. He has a chance now. Perhaps some other 
may speak a word of hope. He summons him by 
telegram. He presents the following diagnosis of 
his formidable disease. 



XXIII 

" Seven months ago, in South Africa, I under- 
went an operation for epithelioma of the antrum, 
necessitating the excision of the left 
superior maxilla ; and, on account of Diagn^oSs^ 
exopthalmus, the left eye had to be 
enucleated. Since then my voice has been badly 
impaired ; and so I wrote down these particulars, 
my artificial palate not working properly of late. 
A few months after the operation, anaesthesia ex- 
tended along the temple and forehead on the left 
side. It has now crossed the middle line, and in- 
volves the whole forehead and scalp. I have been 
laid up for five days with a swollen eye-socket. It 
is with respect to the latter that I wish to consult 
you. Since the operation, the socket has been in 
a state of inflammation, with a profuse whitish dis- 
charge. It is now greatly swollen. The temple on 
the same side is also much swollen. The pain is 
not very great, but there is a feeling of uneasiness 
and oppression. The wound cavity left by the 



22 PARERGA 



operation is looking well, and there is no evidence 
of recurrence in that quarter. I cannot account for 
the accentuation of the anaesthesia, for its extension, 
and for the aggravated state of the eye-socket. I 
would like you to tackle the eye-socket particularly ; 
that region is very anaesthetic, and is affecting my 
head greatly. I may mention there is still some 
granulated tissue and constant extravasation of 
blood behind the eye-socket or at the floor of the 
orbit, as I pay constant attention to it, and know 
how it is getting on." 

XXIV 

I doubt if there were on this planet a more sur- 
prised man than that doctor, when he read this 
diagnosis. The science of medicine 
Science.* ^^ ^ secret science. Very wisely, its 

professors have wrapped up all its 
principles and discoveries in an occult and dead 
language. Its prescriptions are written in a kind of 
luminous shorthand, of which only some letters are 
of Roman type, the rest being cabalistic signs. It 
is a kind of calyptic cypher of which only one man 
holds the key. It is pitiful, but instructive to see 
how an ordinary layman turns over the mysterious 
paper in his hand, and stares in blank ignorance at 
it ; and to witness his surprise when the chemist 
glances over it, and proceeds to interpret it in act. 
Then all medical books are written in great pon- 
derous symbols of sesquipedalian Greek, as if the 
writers kept Liddell and Scott always on their desks, 
and picked out the longest and hardest words. And 
then — watch the contemptuous and angry stare 
with which any layman, or even neophyte, is 



AUTUMN 



23 



crushed who dares to touch even the fringe of 
medical mystery. It is a kind of sacrilegious in- 
vasion into a region where only the initiated are 
admitted ; and happy is the unhappy wight who is 
let off easily with the warning : " You had better 
leave these things alone, young man ! " 



XXV 

It is the same with the Science of law. Here the 
adage holds, " The man who is his own lawyer has 
a fool for a chent." And we know ^ , 

, , . , . . Other Sciences. 

how sternly is the prescription en- 
forced in the courts of justice, that no man can be 
heard unless through the lips of a lawyer. You 
may be as learned as Scaliger, and have all the legal 
lore of Chitty and Bacon and Coke at your fingers' 
ends; but if you presume to infringe upon the he- 
reditary rights of the legal profession, you may be 
assumed to have sacrificed your best interests. " By 
whom are you represented, sir ? " is the dire ques- 
tion ? "By myself!" "Oh!" And your case 
is lost, that is, if you are permitted to speak at 
all ; for, in certain courts, you cannot plead except 
through the instrumentality of a lawyer. Is this 
right ? That is not the question. We are but 
stating facts — that a cordon is drawn around the 
learned professions by rule and statute, by prescrip- 
tion and tradition ; and all who are not initiated into 
the mysteries, who have not eaten dinners and sawed 
bones, are rigidly excluded. Right or wrong this 
exclusiveness undoubtedly surrounds the professions 
with a certain atmosphere of reverence which mate- 
rially helps to keep sacred the inner workings, 
which would soon be profaned by exposure. 



24 PARERGA 



XXVI 

Strange to say, it is only theological science that 

has no such bounds and ramparts as these. It is 

a commonage where every one may 

Commo^ifage. ^^^^Y ^^ ^^^ °^" sweet will. It has 
been invaded, overrun by every class 
and every individual from the beginning of Chris- 
tianity until now. Under the Jewish dispensation, it 
was kept apart and sacred from the multitude, — 
hedged in by every kind of legislation, primitive and 
prohibitive. No man dared touch the Holy Moun- 
tain; no one but the High Priest was privileged to 
enter the Holy of Holies. One tribe was set apart 
for the priesthood. All teaching and all legislation 
came from the lips of a consecrated priesthood. Still 
more exclusive and dominant were, and are, the 
sacred hierarchies of the Eastern religions. The 
Lamas and Brahmins allow no lay-interference with 
their privileges. Even kings and emperors must 
keep aloof. Their lamaseries and monasteries are 
sacred ground, where no one dare trespass without 
permission. Their traditional teachings are such 
that no man dares contravene or challenge. But 
no sooner was Christianity established than a Simon 
Magus tried to penetrate and purchase its myste- 
rious powers ; and from the first, laymen, from the 
Emperor down to the prefect, sought to usurp the 
sacred rights of the Christian priesthood, and mould 
the dogmas of the Christian faith to suit political 
exigencies or private whims. 



AUTUMN 25 



XXVII 

Then came the great rebellion, with its cardinal 
principle that theology was no science ; that relig- 
ion had no mysteries; and that every 
man had a perfect right to frame his Rebe^Uon! 
own dogma according to the direction 
of private interpretation. And whilst all other 
sciences became more exact in their guiding laws, 
and sought to render more rigid every day the 
boundaries of professional exclusiveness ; whilst 
great generalisations broke up into special depart- 
ments, and each department surrounded itself by 
abattis after ahattis of rules and ceremonies, the vast 
domain of theology was broken into by every sacri- 
legious and impious speculator, and all its mysteries 
were profaned by hands that held them up to the 
public gaze either as commonplace truths that no 
man could deny, or fraudulent presumptions that no 
man could accept. And to-day, scientific men of 
every rank and grade, biologists, geologists, astron- 
omers, legislators in every shape, literary men 
through the press, judges on the bench, and even 
the " man in the street " crowd through the broken 
defences and tumbled barricades to plough and sow, 
and reap a sorry harvest where once was the wheat 
that made the Bread of Life, and the wine that 
germinated virgins. 

XXVIII 

Apart from the desecration and the unreasoning 
fury and folly of all this, it is a dis- 
tinct departure from the secret and DepYS^Tre"''^'' 
inviolable laws that direct the oper- 
ations of evolution in Nature and Society. For we 



26 PARERGA 



know that the lower the organism, the more simple 
are its organs and operations. In certain zoophytes, 
each part is capable of every function. As we ad- 
vance higher in the scale, the functional energies, 
becoming more extended, demand new organs for 
their operation ; until we reach the higher mammals, 
where every function has its own specific organ, 
localised and developed. The same tendency ex- 
ists in the body politic, where all the energies are 
again specifically located, and, though obedient to 
and progressing from a common centre, are concen- 
trated in some council, or society, or department, 
whose operations, if controlled from a centre, are 
yet specifically distinct, and more or less independ- 
ent. In the science of theology alone, there is, on 
the part of the masses, an idea that, dissolved as a 
science, it had better be allowed to drift back to 
primitive elements — which are the thoughts of in- 
dividuals — for dogmata, and the vagaries of human 
passion for moral and ethical principle. 



XXIX 

And yet theology is a science, a great science, 
a complicated science ; a science to the upbuilding 

of which were devoted the energies 
scilnce^^^ o^ ^^e greatest intellects that have 

become incarnated on this planet. 
A world of iconoclasts, such as that in which we 
live, may pass by with unbowed heads the statues 
of St. Augustine and St. Thomas ; and may affect 
never to have seen the shrines where saints and 
scholars, like Ambrose and Bernard, are niched 
for ever. But they cannot break them. And so 
long as the printing-press shall last, there shall re- 



AUTUMN 27 



main the record of their studies in the greatest of 
human sciences, and the results of their researches 
into the recesses of mysteries, which are to-day, as 
yesterday, as closed secrets to the eyes of science 
as they were when men believed that the heavens 
were domed above the earth as the centre and pivot 
of space. It is pitiful to see the easy and flippant 
way in which modern sciolists dispense with the 
consideration of questions that agonised the minds 
of Tertullian and Augustine. 

XXX 

Yes, my good doctor was much surprised. He 
seemed not able to take his eye from that page 
where the dying boy had recorded 
the dread symptoms of the disease SedkS"^'" 
that was slowly eating away his life. 
He whistled softly to himself, looked curiously at 
the patient, whispered the mysterious words, " epi- 
thelioma," " enucleated," " antrum," " maxilla," and 
finally asked : 

" You have been a medical student ? " 

" No ! " was the faint, muffled whisper that came 
from the diseased throat. " I am a journalist ! " 

" Oh ! " 

" But," the doctor said, after a pause, " no one 
but a medical expert could have written this ? " 

" I made a study of the disease when I knew I 
was aflfected," was the reply. 

" Rather a foolish thing," said the doctor, main- 
taining the professional exclusiveness. 

" Not at all," was the reply. " There is no mys- 
tery about it." 

The doctor shook his head. This was rank 
heresy to his mind. He turned to me. 



28 PARERGA 



XXXI 

" Strange," he whispered, although the hideous 
malady had destroyed the boy's hearing, " how 
„,, „ . , things work. The blow falls here 

Ultra C re pi dam. , ° , , , , 

and there ; and there appears to be 
no rule, no uniformity, no consistency." 

I nodded acquiescence. 

" If any one were to ask why this boy, clever, 
accomplished, enterprising, should have been struck 
down on the very threshold of a brilliant career, 
whilst hundreds of mere hinds and louts go free, 
where would be the answer ? " 

The good doctor never saw that he was passing 
ultra crepidam. He who would resent, who did 
resent, the trespass of that poor boy upon the 
sacred precincts of medical science, was now uncon- 
sciously usurping the office of theologian. For 
medical science has only to deal with facts, I pre- 
sume, — physiological facts, pathological facts, ma- 
teria medica, etc., etc. What has a doctor to do 
with philosophy, — with motives, reasons, causes of 
things ? Let him keep to his scalpel and his steth- 
oscope ! But no ! Every one must have his say 
about these transcendent mysteries that have ever 
stupefied and puzzled the human mind, as if they 
were market-merchandise, to be turned over, and 
pulled asunder, and examined and valued by every 
hind, or huckster, or vivandiere, who wants a cheap 
bargain. Well, after all, it argues the existence of 
something more than a beaver or squirrel faculty in 
man, and, as such, is worthy of some esteem. I 
thought this, but did not say it to my good doctor. 
Then I took the thought home with me. It was 
my property. 



AUTUMN 29 



Section II 

XXXII 

The mystery of suffering ! The great eternal 
problem ! And yet no problem at all, if we only 
consider it as a Law of Being. Apart 
altogether from the higher and tran- Jiy^sSy** 
scendent and beautiful teachings of 
religion, which place an aureole around the crown of 
thorns on each wounded head, and throw the irides- 
cence of hope athwart the gloomiest and darkest sky, 
is it not in the nature of things that suffering is in- 
evitable? I look at it under three aspects: (i) As 
a necessary condition of imperfect beings; (2) as a 
necessary motive power in carrying on the work of 
existence ; (3) as an unconscious but most noble 
revelation to higher beings than we are of facts and 
principles in the great economy of creation that 
perhaps otherwise would be hidden from them for 
ever. I know perfectly that all these philosophical 
reasonings cannot mitigate pain any more than rea- 
soning can disarm Death of its terrors, or soothe an 
excruciating physical torment. I know no philo- 
sophical talisman for anguish or sorrow, except that 
final hope of suffering humanity : All things have 
an end. But, nevertheless, it may be in our pain- 
less moments a soothing thought that suffering is 
not the unreasoning and inconsiderate infliction on 
helpless beings of pain from the hands of a supreme 
and arbitrary power ; but that behind it there may 
be grave motives and far-reaching designs which our 
imperfect knowledge may feebly grasp, if we cannot 
always hold fast to them as a consolatory remedy 
for our weakness and our woes. 



30 PARERGA 



XXXIII 

It is strange that men will not see how suffering 
is the inevitable accompaniment of our state of ex- 
istence. Whether man has fallen 

The Inevitable. ^ ~ - . .. 

from a state or perfection according 
to Christian truth and belief, keeping still some 
vague tradition of that happy condition in his eter- 
nal dream of the perfectibility of the race ; or whether, 
in the evolutionist theory, he is supposed to be 
struggling upwards from primary elements towards 
more spacious conditions and final developments, it 
must be admitted that this his intermediate state is 
a state of imperfection, with all the blunted senses, 
stunted faculties, darkened intellect, and weakened 
will, that denote a fallen or struggling being. In 
such a state, suffering is inevitable. Death must be 
preluded by disease ; and the aspiring soul must 
beat its wings in fruitless efforts to touch an ideal 
that is ever present, and ever unattainable. Hence, 
the sublime dissatisfaction that ever haunts the 
dreams of mortals, — the never-satisfied craving 
and hunger after an indefinable something that 
ever eludes us, and that is not to be attained, no 
matter how frequently we change the surroundings 
of life and seek to satisfy our unquenchable desires. 
Hence come mental pain and anxiety, — "the look- 
ing before and after and pining for what is not," of 
which the poet speaks, — the restlessness and irrita- 
bility, the exaggeration of trifles, the sad presenti- 
ments of the future, the bitter remorse for neglected 
opportunities that beset the weary way, — the via 
dolorosa of human life. 



AUTUMN 31 



" Nothing begins and nothing ends. 
That is not paid with moan; 
For we are born in others' pain. 
And perish in our own." 

XXXIV 

Again, there can be no progress without pain. 
In pain are we brought forth into the world; in 
pain do we grow and increase ; in 
pain, perhaps painless pain, do we wUhrmPafn. 
die. But never a forward step is 
taken by man or society without pain and suffering. 
The whole development of human character is 
wrought, and can only be wrought, by self-denial and 
suffering, by the patient bearing of weary burdens, 
by the crushing of one's own will, by the forehead 
wrinkled and the face agonised under the pressure 
of torture. All the finest faculties of our nature 
remain dormant until they wake under the sharp 
accolade of pain. We all know the beauty of a suf- 
fering creature, — the unspeakable beauty of death. 
It is only the sharp chisel of pain that can round 
the lineaments into such perfect and ethereal love- 
liness. Take the case of this poor boy. The left 
profile is, if you like, hideously scarred by his disease 
and by the cicatrices of the surgeon's knife. The 
cheek is deeply furrowed and fallen in, where the 
maxilla was removed ; and the eye-socket is swollen 
and discoloured from the disease that is proceeding 
beneath. But the left profile — narrow white fore- 
head, great luminous eye, straight nose, and cheek 
and chin covered with a light, fair beard — is per- 
fect; perfect above all by that colour of gentle 
paleness that marks the patience of great suffering, 
endured bravely, and without a murmur. 



32 PARERGA 



XXXV 

The social body, too, is moved ahead along the 
wheels of suffering. It is a sad truth that the hor- 
rors of war appear to be the necessary 
of^Civmsation"* preliminaries to advancing civilisa- 
tion. Every great forward movement 
in human history has been preluded by conquest. 
Degeneracy is the adjunct of continued peace. 
Hence the school of thinkers who maintain that 
war is a necessity for eliminating the weaker ele- 
ments of a nation and developing its strength ! 

Is it peace or war ? better, war ! loud war by land and sea. 
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. 

It is famine, too, that scattered the civilising races 
over the earth. The surplus populations in the old 
countries, driven to distress and despair by over- 
crowding, fled their own land with its congested 
millions, and carried civilisation across seas and 
lands to black and tawny savages. These in turn 
yielded under the sword, and the " white man " 
triumphed. We cannot say much for the morality 
of such progress : but we are speaking of facts. 
Famine drove forth the conquerors ; the conquered 
perished by the sword. Civilisation followed in 
the wake of the latter; that is, along the valleys of 
suffering and death. The path of progress is the 
path of pain. Bleached bones and broken hearts 
mark every inch of its way. 



AUTUMN 



33 



XXXVI 

But there is a third consideration, which is for 
ever rising up before my mind. I can hardly con- 
ceive anything so absurd as the proud ^ ^ , „ . . 

, . ■^11 J • r t • Grades of Spirits. 

claim made by us, denizens or this 
little planet, that we represent the acme of perfection 
in God's universe ; that we are the objective of all 
evolutionary processes, — the sum total and crown- 
ing-point of all the mysterious designs and occult 
operations of the universe. Man has always seemed 
to me to be the lowest representative of intellect in 
the Universe, if he is the highest animal. And I 
never had the least doubt that there are species and 
types beyond limit, of spiritual and intellectual es- 
sences, either resident, as we are, in planetary worlds, 
or diffused universally through the ether in which 
the universe is enveloped. Our conceptions of the 
seraphim and the cherubim would represent the high- 
est attainable grade in spiritual perfections. But 
between the seraphim and man, what a mighty gulf 
interposes ! What a vast space to be peopled with 
great spirits ! And what tremendous possibilities 
for the exercise of the never-tiring, ever-plastic attri- 
bute of God's omnipotence ! 

XXXVII 

Astronomy, too, reveals to us the possibility 
of the planets, not only of our system, but of 
greater systems, being peopled with 
types of pure spirits, or mingled ere- planets!*^ 
ations, diverse as the faces of men, 
and numberless as the sands of the sea. That our 
3 



34 PARERGA 



little moth-planet occupies the central position in 
the universe, which can have no centre, is an as- 
sumption so grotesque that men wondered when a 
distinguished professor advanced the theory last 
year. We have to judge of the condition of the 
universe outside ourselves by reason and analogy. 
And reason tells us what a deordination it would be 
that only one planet amongst myriads should be 
inhabited by reasoning and sentient beings ; and 
analogy teaches us that, inasmuch as the conforma- 
tion of the earth does not differ materially from that 
of the other planets, there is every reason to sup- 
pose that similar conditions are adapted to similar, 
if higher, races of being ; and that Nature, in its 
mighty evolutions under the All-guiding Hand, has 
not broken its moulds, nor lost its cunning, when 
it placed man as master on this tiny world in space. 

XXXVIII 

Now each tiniest item of creation works outward 
and upward, subserving some higher species. Its 
energies are not limited to its own 
of^N^ur^^^'" existence or welfare ; nor even to the 
continuance and preservation of its 
own kind. It is the Altruism of Nature — the de- 
sign of making all things cooperate in one single 
plan ; each working for some higher existence than 
its own, and subserving some higher and hidden 
purpose far beyond its ken. For, just as each drop 
of rain serves the ulterior purpose of carrying salts 
to the sea; as the coral insect builds an island, and 
then a continent, while it perishes ; as the tiny shell- 
fish dies, after extracting from its own viscera the 
material that goes to build yonder cathedral ; so 



AUTUMN 35 



every human life has some ulterior purpose, as yet 
but dimly guessed, but yet most certainly to be 
revealed. And, as the rabbit or guinea-pig in the 
hands of the scientist knows nothing in its pain of 
the vast purposes it subserves, and only knows 
that it is passing through a mysterious trial under 
the hands of some superior and powerful being, so 
we, too, are ignorant of the purposes which we serve 
throughout the universe of God by the mysterious 
agency of labour and pain and suffering. 

XXXIX 

And may it not happen that, as the shrinking 
animal gives ideas that are helpful to the higher 
species of its own creation, so we also 
may be the means, through labour, lation* ^^^^" 
agony, and even death, of communi- 
cating larger knowledge, nay, perhaps wider help, to 
beings of whose existence we can form but a vague 
comprehension, but who are as far beyond us as we 
are beyond the beasts that perish and are dumb? 
And may there not be some supreme science, some 
synthesis of all earthly sciences, such as we are 
always seeking after, but never attaining; and that 
all this human pain and suffering under which we 
blindly labour, and which sometimes seems to us 
such an infliction of unnecessary cruelty on the part 
of an all-powerful but capricious Being, are con- 
tributory to the perfecting of that science, just as 
the toxin in the veins of an afflicted beast reveals 
some secret to the eye of a scientist, who in turn 
builds therefrom some great theory fraught with 
illimitable and beneficial consequences to suffering 
mankind ? 



36 PARERGA 



XL 

So thinks, too, my poor patient, as far as I can 
distinguish his words spoken through the muffled 

and distorted medium of a diseased 
Death?" °* mouth. He had been one of our 

most brilliant pupils here a few years 
ago, and had shown a marked aptitude for compo- 
sition, shorthand, and type-writing. Then, con- 
scious of his powers, and knowing that there was no 
room for the exercise of them here, he left home, 
took up a subordinate position on some Irish jour- 
nals, using every farthing of his salary to buy books. 
Thence, fired with ambition, he went to South 
Africa, became sub-editor on an influential paper, 
with a handsome salary, and was moving upwards 
and onwards to very high positions, when one day 
he noticed a slight anaesthesia in the left cheek. It 
was nothing, apparently, and his medical advisers 
suggested neuralgia. The theory was consolatory, 
if not convincing. Then the left eye began to bulge 
forward, and he sought the help of higher science. 
The verdict was instantaneous and fatal — cancer. 
Death in three months, unless an operation was 
eflfected. Death in any case, but slightly deferred. 
And preferring to sleep under the Irish shamrocks 
at home, rather than beneath the South African 
veldt, the poor wrecked spirit sought its native 
land. 



AUTUMN 37 



XLI 

Wisely or unwisely, too, he had made a study of 
his disease, as we have seen ; and he knew the dis- 
tinction between the various forms 
of his dread malady as well as his '"JoneT""''^ 
physician. It was pathetic to hear 
him explaining the exact difference between epithe- 
lioma, sarcoma, carcinoma, etc., — words, I could 
not help thinking, fit to be the symbols of flowers, 
or other fair and holy things, but now consecrated, 
or desecrated, to the nomenclature of the most 
intractable and hideous disease that afflicts poor 
humanity. But he knows it all ; sees in it the indi- 
cation of the existence of a Higher, controlling 
Power; murmurs sometimes about his youth, and 
all its fair promise cut away ; dreams of what might 
have been, had he been allowed to pursue his pro- 
fession under such glorious and happy auspices. 
Then, whilst a tear steals forth, glistens and falls, 
he murmurs that best prayer for us poor, purblind 
creatures, " Thy will be done ! " 

XLII 

Thank God, the leaden skies, and the southwest 
storms, and the driving rain have come at last. It 
is a strange exclamation of gratitude, 
and I suppose very few would echo ^Stf ^^^ 
it. And yet, I confess, I prefer the 
shortened days and lengthened nights, the sombre 
skies and the sound of storms, to the languor and 
heat, and the eternal blue of summer days and sum- 
mer skies. I certainly love the brightness and 
beauty of a summer morning, when the sun streams 



38 PARERGA 



in, and lights up the colours and gilding on my 
books and pictures ; and, in the garden, all sweet, 
fair things turn their faces towards the light-giver 
and life-giver. But I shrink from the stare of the 
great, open eye of a summer day ; and the long, 
dreamy twilights fill me with unspeakable melan- 
choly. I don't know what it is, — whether it is the 
passing nature of all summer loveliness, or whether 
it is the lonely setting of evening suns, or the pale 
aspect of things in contrast with the splendour and 
glare that have disappeared ; but, whatever it is, I 
tire of its sombre beauty, and cry for my lamp and 
fireside, for the book that is never so dear as when 
the pale yellow light falls and pauses on its pages. 

XLIII 

Then the very stillness of Summer becomes op- 
pressive. There is a languor over all things, an 

effeminacy of atmosphere and tem- 
BoreasT*' perature that seems to suggest a sick 

condition of things, physical as well 
as mental. The lazy winds that breathe so softly 
from the south, and feebly lift up the leaves of syca- 
more and beech, and stir so faintly the sleepy head 
of the rose, are again suggestive of weakness and 
languor and debility. Perhaps, too, the aspect of 
pale consumptives, who were hidden away all the 
Winter from its rude embraces, and now come forth 
to sit or walk feebly in the summer heat, may, 
through some strange association of ideas, suggest 
sickness and disease. But I don't like it. I want 
the bellowing and roaring and defiance of Boreas, as 
he thunders out of the north, and sweeps down on 
hillside and forest, and shakes and sways the mass- 



AUTUMN 



39 



ive frames of yonder giants, and tosses their branches 
furiously against each other, and strews road and 
sward and forest glade and the surface of the agi- 
tated river with the spoils of countless leaves and 
berries, and bares the vast arcades till their white 
trunks seem the newly polished pillars in the great 
cathedral of Nature. 



XLIV 



I know no rarer human pleasure than to lie awake 
at night in the late Autumn or early Winter, and, 
whilst the cheerful fire is crackling in 
the grate and flinging giant shadows J^\ui°!^' 
on the ceiling, to listen to the fore- 
gathering and bursting of a midnight storm. Prob- 
ably it is the contrast between our sense of security 
and comfort and the dangerous elements raging out- 
side that makes the pleasant surroundings so de- 
lightful, according to the initial word of philosophy 
uttered by Lucretius : 

"When storms blow loud, 't is sweet to watch at ease 
From shore, the sailor labouring with the seas ; 

Because the sense, not that such pains are his. 
But that they are not ours, must always please." 

But, apart from that, there is a sense of the splen- 
dour and magnificence of things when the riot of 
Nature begins afar off in the sky, and its elemental 
forces, always kept in check by supreme, invisible 
laws, appear to have broken loose, and, trailing 
behind them the sundered chains that had bound 
them, sweep down with irresistible and destructive 
force on the passive and tortured earth. When the 
serenities of Nature are broken up, one sees the 
awful and veiled terrors that lie hidden beneath. 



40 PARERGA 



XLV 

But there is a curious dramatic force or power 
in these storm-displays. An earthquake, without 

monition or scenic effect, tears and 
tIe%?o?iS!^ °^ rends a vast city in pieces. A flash 

of lightning smites suddenly and 
swiftly, and the thunder rolls out its salvo of tri- 
umph over defeated or shattered nature. But it is 
a momentary, a transient, and a monotonous dem- 
onstration. But in the gathering of a midnight 
storm far away and far up in the skies and dark- 
ness ; in the tumult and roar of vast forces collected 
from the four points of the heavens and flung into 
inextricable confusion ; in the pause and silent gird- 
ings and strappings before the great downward 
charge on the earth ; in the fury and determination 
of the onset as it bears with coherent and irresistible 
force on town, or hamlet, or forest; in its trophies 
of rooted trees and the crash that accompanies their 
destruction, and the flying slates that are lifted like 
papers and carried onward lightly on the wings of 
the blast; there is a tragic and sublime revelation 
that thrills one with a sense of awe, and a corre- 
sponding sense of selfish delight at one's own 
safety. 

XLVI 

Next to that sense of pleasure and safety is the 

delight of Hstening on an autumnal night, when 

, „ . it is dark and still, to the steady. 

Autumnal Rains. i i • • i r n r i i 

rhythmic, musical fall of slow, heavy, 
autumnal rains. The zip, zip, of the rain-drops 
falling in the darkness, and gathering in larger 
globules on the red and yellow leaves ; the swish 



AUTUMN 



41 



of the channel runlets carried on as if by some 
kind of capillary attraction to the river, as the river 
is borne by its own hidden laws towards the sea ; 
the stillness and sombreness of the autumnal night ; 
and the symbolism of autumnal decay and weeping 
and darkened skies, — all have a touch of that 
sweet, sad melancholy, which, if we are to believe 
old Fletcher and our own experience, has some- 
thing in it more daintily sweet than the vain de- 
lights and passion-swept nights of the votaries of 
pleasure and fashion. Yes ! I think the Autumn 
of the year, though it is bereft of all the joyance 
and pleasance of Spring, is best after all. It seems, 
at least, to symbolise what is best; that is, fruitage 
and harvesting, and the rest that comes after labour. 

XLVII 

So, too, I think the Autumn of life Is best. I 
admit that youth has its raptures and enthusiasms, 
— its intense enjoyment of the pres- 
ent, its magnificent dreams of the "^f \,tfe*""^° 
future. The sun shines out in all 
his splendour and majesty. That grey, sombre 
cloud, experience, which warms and fertilises our 
little lives, has not yet thrown his shadow across 
our path. We live in the present moment, which 
is the sum-total of all philosophy ; we ignore the 
past with all its faults and blunders and sins ; and 
we look forward to the future under the shining 
iris of eternal hope. And yet youth has its pains 
and penalties too, — its uncertainties, its disappoint- 
ments, its keen pangs of unreturned passions and 
unrequited loves ; its heat and fury and headlong 
plunging into abysses, whence it emerges with 
broken wings and shattered nerves. Yes ! the au- 



42 PARERGA 



tumnal sorrows are less keen ; and if only the 
middle-aged could keep that great secret of youth, 
— to live in the present moment, and let the future 
and the past take care of themselves, I think it 
would be the supremely happy period of our mortal 
existence. 

XLVIII 

I am confirmed in this conviction by the few 
autumnal acquaintances I have made. Or rather, I 

should say, " had made," for now 
quainTan^t'" ^hey have become phantoms of the 

past, shadows thrown across the can- 
vas through the magic lantern of life. Some are 
real phantoms, — glimmering ghosts looking at me 
with their spectral faces from eternity. Others have 
passed beyond my ken for ever. If I fix their 
contours and colours on this page, there will be no 
unkindness, if we are to believe the words of the 
poet : " The proper study of mankind is man ! " 
I do not at all agree with the famous aphorism. I 
think the subject a poor one at the best. The 
proper study of mankind is the individual's soul, 
laid bare under the searchlight of conscience ; and 
the mysteries of being; and the secrets that underlie 
the flower and the star; and the evolution of life 
and its ultimate term ; and all the mighty questions 
that have agitated the world from the beginning, 
and will continue to agitate it to the end of time. 
But I seize on the liberty of painting my fellow 
beings, because they illustrate my theories about 
the Autumn of life, — its serenities and cares, its 
remorses and anticipations, its claim for precedence 
above the hot passions of youth, and the subdued 
but not extinguished fires of middle age. 



AUTUMN 43 



XLIX 

My first study Is not a remarkable one. He is 
easily met with in daily life. He is a thoroughly 
successful man. He is young still, ^ 

, . ^1 r ^- T^u • 1 ^ great Success. 

only m the forties. 1 here is no mark 
of decay or failure about him except that a few Unes 
of silver are shot through his blue-black, bushy 
hair. This is creased over the left temple, and 
brushed back, thick and glossy, over his head. 
He looks at you with cold, clear blue eyes, mild in 
their radiance, but set deep and fast, as if they were 
embedded in adamant ; for they do not seem to 
look at you, but to fall on you and remain fast- 
ened to your face. There are two well-marked 
lines in the short, stubby, firm nose, which is 
squared at the tips. He is always as closely shaven 
as a judge, and his face is blue-black from the razor. 
And this shows the straight slit that marks his 
mouth, and the square, firm chin beneath. He 
never smiles, or smiles in such a sort as if he chid 
and scorned himself for smiling. No man ever 
saw his teeth in speech or laughter. He has all his 
means cosily and safely invested in five per cent 
stock. He gives admirable dinners, and always 
finds people to eat them. His plate, his ware, his 
servants are perfection. He accepts the praises 
of men politely, but with evident incredulity. He 
forces champagne on them, but sips a little Hoch- 
heimer himself. He has never married, nor touched 
a card, nor betted on a horse, because he abhors all 
chance. Everything must be a dead certainty to 
him. He goes every year to Marienbad to ease 
his liver and get the fur out of his arteries. He 



44 PARERGA 



figures largely in subscription-lists ; and having made 
everything snug and secure in this world he is try- 
ing hard to secure the hereafter also. He has some 
suspicion that all his gains are not lawful ; and he is 
covering the doubt with munificent charities. 



/ 



But he is autumnal — that is my point. He has 
all the serenity of grey skies and mild weather, the 
T, m, ^- • slightest touch of incipient decay, but 

But a Mediocrity. ii i i • i i i 111 

ail the largesse m health and wealth 
that the years have garnered for him. He is enjoy- 
ing the harvest of life, reaping all its blessedness, 
rejoicing in all its fulness. He has made no mis- 
takes that would now embitter with remorse his 
repose ; and he is cautious, but not fearful, of a 
future whose uncertainties he has calculated and 
reduced to a minimum. He comes near perfection, 
yet falls infinitely short of it. Infinitely.'' Yes. 
He is only, after all, a calculating machine — a thing 
that is wound up every day, and every day does 
precisely what it did the day before. He is too 
uniformly successful to be human. He can never 
rise above mediocrity. He can never make great 
mistakes, and do great things. He lives on the 
lower levels of self, hedged around by caution, fenced 
by prudence, safeguarded by foresight. The eternal 
heights are not for him. The struggle, the fall, the 
repeated and gallant attack, the scramble, the wounds, 
the gaining of one ledge after another, the final leap 
over the last barrier, the planting of the flag on the 
citadel, with the/jy suis^fy reste for his motto, are 
not for him. Leave him alone down there with his 
pieces of metal and his smug hypocrisy ! He has 
no part with the great ones of the earth. 



AUTUMN 



45 



LI 

My second type is the very antithesis of this. He 
has plunged suddenly downwards from affluence 
to poverty, and has kept his equa- 
nimity unruffled. He had been in ^n^rRuin. 
the enjoyment of some thousands a 
year; had had a suburban villa so filled with all 
sorts of art-treasures that one could scarcely move 
around his rooms. The walls were so lined with 
etchings and engravings, statuettes and pictures, 
bronze busts and plaques, that scarcely one square 
inch of paper was visible. Out of doors his gardens 
stretched up in stately terraces, one rivalling the 
other in splendour, until the whole beautiful vista 
terminated in a pavilion, again filled with all kinds 
of costly and artistic things gathered from reposito- 
ries in the great cities of the world. Here, from 
time to time, that is very often, he brought together 
numerous friends from city and town, regaled them 
with every luxury, amused them with every kind 
of entertainment, until the place became a little 
Paradise above the sea, which lent to the scene its 
own enchantment. Then came the crash. The 
whole thing vanished like a dream. It was many 
years after that when I visited the place again. I 
had seen it in the very zenith of its glory, and had 
taken away and stored up in the maps of memory 
a beautiful picture of the place, of its surroundings, 
of its generous and kindly master. I passed by 
in the dusk of the evening. The high wall that 
shielded from vulgar observation all this loveliness 
was broken down. I went in. The magnificent 
pavilion was a mass of ruin ; its perfect flower-beds 



46 PARERGA 



were overgrown with nettles. The splendid urns 
that capped the pedestals were slimy and broken. 
It was a picture of ruin and desolation. 



LII 

Soon after I met the former master of this ruined 

paradise. Although past his seventieth year, he 

^ , _ was still in all his autumnal splen- 

Guarda e Passa. , ^^ j -n r if 

dour. i<ate and ill-fortune had not 
touched him. The same brightness, the same cheer- 
fulness, the same bonhomie, the same optimism 
that had made him the centre of his circle some 
years before, had not abandoned him in adversity 
and penury. " I am a happier man to-day," he 
said, " than when I had thousands to spend. I have 
a room during the summer down near the sea, and 
two rooms here in the city for the winter, and a 
cool hundred a year. I have no responsibihty 
now. I needn't ask John, Dick, or Harry to dine, 
and to tell you the truth," he added, with a smile, 
" I 'm not likely to be asked myself." 

" What ? " I cried. " You, who entertained like 
a prince — do you mean to tell me that you are 
never challenged by any of your former friends to 
a paltry dinner ? " 

" Never ! " he said frankly. " And what is more, 
they cut me here in this very street ! " 

" The hounds ! " I could n't help saying. " Do 

you mean to say that not even has an open 

house for you ? " 

He shook his head, but always smiling. 

" He does n't see me when we pass here. Or 
rather he does, and goes to the other side of the 
street." 



AUTUMN 



47 



LIII 

" Why, the last time I saw him," I cried, " 't was 
in the Pavilion. He had a glass (and a good long, 
tall one it was) of champagne in his 
hand, and he was diving into a lobster ^ °^ 

salad as hard as he could. 1 remember I had to 
jump his long spider legs when I was coming 
away." 

" My dear fellow," he said, " don't you know 'tis 
all human nature ? When I had all these friends 
at the Pavilion, feeding them and entertaining them, 
I was pleasing myself There is one phase of human 
nature. When they choose to cut me, there is an- 
other. Did I expect anything else ? Certainly not. 
I know the world too well. And what difference 
does it make ? I can now pass along here without 
bothering about anyone. I can stop and look at 
the shop windows without being molested. I know 
no one, and no one knows me. Tant mieux ! 
Hallo! Jiff! Jiff! Jiff!" 

He took a boatswain's whistle from his vest 
pocket and looked anxiously around. Far away, a 
little black, woolly terrier was dodging tram-cars, 
side-cars, and passengers. When she heard the 
well-known whistle she scampered over to her 
master's feet. 

" Good day," he said ; " I am glad to see you for 
old times' sake." 

" Good day," I replied ; " I am glad to have seen 
the greatest Irish philosopher after Berkeley." 



48 PARERGA 



LIV 

It is a gusty, windy, autumnal day. The wild 
west wind has burst his bonds and is thundering up 
from the horizon, driving huge black 
clouds before him, like the disorgan- 
ised phalanxes of a conquered army. And he has 
caught in his fierce embraces the forest trees, and 
shaken them, and clashed them together, till the 
whole sky is mottled with flying leaves, spinning in 
the whirlwind; and the ground is growing thick 
with the red refuse of the dying year. And, quite 
appropriately, another autumnal type of character 
crosses my path. He is grizzled and gray before 
his time ; and some sharper chisel than the years 
has cut channels in his cheeks, and sunk the orbits 
of eyes that smoulder in repose, but gleam with a 
terrible light when you touch one subject. And 
how can you avoid it, when it embraces everything 
of interest, — that is, men and women — the world 
— the race — humanity ? Tolerant enough, polite, 
even charitable in a large measure, he becomes ab- 
solutely ferocious when you turn the conversation 
on the Zeit-Geist. The fact is, he commenced 
badly, — with a large, childlike, hopeful, trusting 
faith in human nature, which has now changed into 
a fanatical hatred. I can quite understand it, al- 
though he has never explained. 

LV 

I see him coming forth from a home where he 
was surrounded with all that was sweet and beauti- 
^ , , ful and sacred, where he never leaned 

Early Education. • ^ ^l . i j i -i 

agamst anythmg harder than a pil- 
low, and the flutter of a roseleaf was not allowed 



AUTUMN 



49 



to ruffle his sleep. He was taught — O stulti et 
caeci corde ! — that the whole world was like this ! — 
that truth, honour, purity, sweetness, modesty, be- 
nevolence, were to be his guardian angels through 
life ; and that, above all, he should smile on the 
world to get back smiles in return. It was a long 
story, the story of his disillusion, for he clung with 
despairing tenacity to his childhood's principles, 
until, one by one, they came to be disproved, and 
the last shred of their protection was torn away, 
leaving him naked to his enemies. What was worse, 
he found, in all authors who had become sacred to 
him by reason of their lofty standing in literature 
or from early associations, that the same principles, 
endeared to him by early teaching, were carefully 
inculcated until they had become a faith, a religion, 
interwoven into his life. 



LVI 

The progress of the world, the perfectibility of 
man, the advance of the race from civilisation to a 
yet higher civilisation, the ehmination . 

of all physical evil and all moral 
taint, until the apex was reached, where man 
should stand forth the immortal realisation of an 
idea, — all these phrases and sentences had become 
the symbols and embodiment of the theories that 
had touched the enthusiasm of his youth, and in- 
spired the more sober opinions of middle age. 
Alas ! slowly and painfully he awoke to the knowl- 
edge of human imperfection, deepening, as the 
years advanced, into a knowledge of human igno- 
rance and iniquity, and culminating in the autumnal 
years into a recognition or behef in almost universal 



50 PARERGA 



depravity. He was not saddened, but maddened, 
by the revelation. Even though it had slowly 
grown into a conviction, it carried with it the shock, 
the surprise, of a sudden unveiling of deeps too 
terrible to be contemplated or measured. Like 
some monomania that is suddenly engendered by 
brain fever, or that grows out of painful experience, 
his mind was ever revolving around it ; and his 
conversation, no matter from what distant pole it 
started, invariably turned back to the one topic on 
which the wheels of thought moved as on a pivot. 

LVII 

" I can pardon a good deal," he would say, " but 
I cannot condone your crime in educating children 

as you do. You teach them that it 
Experienced"^ is dishonourable to lie or steal ; you 

teach them to be merciful and kind 
and self-effacing ; you teach them an altruism 
which is divine rather than human. And you teach 
all this on the understanding that the world will give 
back as it receives, and mirror the riant and bland 
expressions of ingenuous youth. You take that 
child from school, and the first lesson the world 
teaches him is, that all the wheels of life and society 
are moved by lying and hypocrisy. You place that 
boy behind a counter where, if he lies not, he is 
instantly dismissed. He is taught, and not only 
taught, but ordered, to put a price on his goods and 
merchandise not according to market values, or 
current charges, or a scale of legitimate profit, but 
according to the appearance of his customers. You 
put him in a fair or market. He instantly knows 
that he must lie foully for self-protection, for 



AUTUMN 51 



every man amongst these thousands has come hither 
to swindle or to cheat. You give him a profession. 
He Hes with his fingers on his patient's pulse. And 
he will save the most consummate scoundrel from 
the gallows, and drive the most innocent beneath it, 
for that bribe called a fee." 



LVIII 

" Look at your Courts of Justice. Every police- 
man knows that to gain the good-will of his officer, 
he must swear up to the mark. . ^^j^^ ^jj^^ 
Every Crown Prosecutor feels that 
he is not there to discriminate the guilty from the 
innocent ; but to put the halter around the neck of 
that trembling wretch in the dock. The quarry 
has to be run to ground, and he has to do it. That 
is all ! His professional reputation will suffer if 
that wretch escapes. Tears of wife or children, 
or their unutterable delight ; despair of devils, or 
ecstasy of angels, such as will alternate in these 
human hearts contingently upon the one word 
uttered by yonder bland foreman, — these have 
nothing to do with the matter. He wants that 
one word. Guilty! otherwise that venison pasty 
will be tasteless, and that champagne will be flat as 
ditchwater. And all the time Justice stands blind- 
folded with her scales in her hands. Why should 
the bandage fall or be removed ? Will not her 
paid advocates lead her aright, and drop that heavy 
sword into the scales against the condemned with 
a solemn and conscientious Vae Victis? 



52 PARERGA 



LIX 

And your statesmen! Here is the sublime "He 
has lied boldly," said Talleyrand. "There's the 

making of a mighty statesman in 
tlvefSty. him." "Diplomacy," "statecraft," 

"political foresight," "civic wisdom," 
etc., etc., what an accommodating language ! How 
it lends itself to euphemisms ! And how beauti- 
fully men gather up the skirts of easy words and 
wrap them around bald and naked ugliness, as the 
clothes of the world hide and dissemble all the ugli- 
ness of deformed humanity ! " But," he cried, with 
a filip of his finger, "a truce to all that ! I don't heed 
it ! Let the world damn itself in its own fashion. 
I 'm not going to play the part of the faithful 
Abdiel. But," he cried with bitter emphasis, " if I 
had the education of children in my hands, I would 
have a Fagin-school with several Artful Dodgers in 
every parish to teach the young idea how to adapt 
itself to the larger and more intricate systems of 
prevarication and swindling that are current in the 
wide world of men. And I would teach them to 
steel their hearts against every human feeling; and 
smile as their seniors smile when they are practising 
the arts of hypocrisy and deceit." 



LX 

I shuddered at this tirade against the species. 

He went away with his head down and a frown on 

, .^ „ his fine features. And, as if to em- 

A lund Sunset. , . i • i • j j i j 

phasise his lurid and thunderous 
descriptions of a fallen world, the autumnal sunset 



AUTUMN 



53 



framed itself into such an aspect of magnificent 
horrors that I began to think the end of all 
things had come, and the wrath of the celestials 
was about to descend on a doomed world. All the 
western horizon up to forty degrees of the zenith 
was piled with blue-black clouds, through which, 
here and there, were purple strata into which, as 
the sun descended, the lowering darkness blended 
and softened into vast areas of dark-red splendour ; 
whilst farther away, and on the edge of the horizon, 
sudden openings in the piled masses of vapour re- 
vealed great fields of scarlet and yellow radiance, 
serrated, rounded, piled, heap on heap, in vast 
cumulative masses, which assumed, in the ever- 
varying light, one colour more blinding and radiant 
than another. But, where the heavy purple clouds 
hung motionless on the verge of the horizon, there 
seemed to break through them here and there, vast 
ragged caverns, irregular but well defined — here a 
Gothic arch, there a Cyclopean cave, farther on, a 
great round dome : but all as black as midnight. 
" It is the vestibule of Hell," I said. 



LXI 

The next evening, I thought, I should not let even 
one of such glorious October sunsets escape me. 
Fading and evanescent — as all beau- 
tiful things — indeed, as all things cumuir"* 
are (but somehow the beautiful seems 
more frail than the sombre and the dreadful, proba- 
bly because we wish it to remain), — yet, there is 
no reason why we, too, frail and evanescent beings, 
should not take from them such pleasures as they 
afford us. And surely, if there be a harmless grati- 



54 PARERGA 



fication, it must be that which arises from the con- 
templation of such sublimities as the mighty Artist 
and Architect of the Universe prepares for his 
wondering, but ungrateful children. This evening, 
as if with the touch of a magician's wand, all the 
sombre splendours of last night had vanished ; but 
there was quite enough of water-vapour to catch 
and reflect the beauty of the dying sun. Instead 
of vast purple and black cumuli, resting like some 
mountain of desolation and grandeur on the rim of 
the horizon, long strata of cirrhous clouds stretched 
from north to south in parallel lines. The eastern 
horizon was crowded with pink cloudlets, darkening 
to deep purple on the sky line ; and in the zenith, 
the faint and feathery shadows were crimsoned, and 
then gently vanished, as the sun fell from his orbit 
into the burning and glowing west. 

LXII 

But all the other cirrhous flakes of cloudlets were 
masses of burning gold resting on foundations of 

grey vapour, which, in turn, as the 
ftar^''^"'"^' departing rays of the dying sun 

struck them, were transmuted into 
red and yellow nuggets of molten metal, with an 
occasional break through the green sky, as of an 
alloy to test their value. I had to shade my eyes 
from their blinding splendours, until, with involu- 
tion after involution, the glowing masses melted 
into each other, or dropped their golden radiances 
from cloud to cloud as the sun descended. It was 
as if some potent stage-manager or stage-painter was 
flinging his majestic colours broadcast over the vast 
curtain of the heavens, until, his palette run dry 



AUTUMN 55 



and exhausted, the splendours faded away, so si- 
lently, so gradually, with so much tenderness and 
pathos, that I could only think of the farewell kiss 
of a dying child, or the gradual fading away of those 
spirit-faces that artists have drawn on canvas, but 
never seen in the flesh. Then out came one star, 
dancing and caracoling in the broad heavens that he 
had now to himself. " Pah ! " I cried, for the sor- 
row of the thing had crept into my heart, " it is like 
a ballet dancer on the altar of a deserted cathedral ! " 



LXIII 

" Say rather a herald of eternity ! " said a voice, 
and a soft hand rested on my arm. I did not shake 
it off. I did not shake it off, be- 
cause it was my Poet, my dreamer of Gangen^^^" 
dreams, my Alter Ego, — the being 
with whom alone I can freely converse, and open 
out my mind with the certainty of being under- 
stood and believed. With him alone 1 am at ease, 
for to him alone am I intelligible. When I con- 
verse with other men I feel that I am speaking to 
statues, which stare irresponsively at me. When I 
speak with him I know 1 am addressing a soul. 
With other men I speak about human topics: — 
their politics, their commerce, their wars, their food, 
their dress. With him I speak of higher subjects, 
— the soul, eternity, the course of history, the trend 
of human events ; Nature, — the eternal Spring, 
earth with its thousand aspects, the Heavens with 
their dark secrets. Life, and the shadow that waits 
for us all with the keys. If ever I touch on merely 
human things, a cloud of disappointment and vexa- 
tion crosses his fine features. He is eloquently 



56 PARERGA 



silent, and runs his fingers through tangled and un- 
combed locks, with just now the winter blossoms 
beginning to gleam through their gold. When I 
speak of higher things, his face glows. The foun- 
tains of the great deep are broken up. 

LXIV 

" What are those tears for ? " he said, for my 
eyes were red with the sorrow of the 
f^?Angl°r^ sunset, — type of all ephemeral and 

vanishing things. 

" For the sorrow of the world," I said, " and its 
sad destinies ; for the perishing of all that is most 
fair, and the permanence of all that is foul and sor- 
did. For the earth, which is but a cradle of suffer- 
ing ; and for man, who weeps when he is born." 

" But you were more than this," he replied. 
" You were angry, and you used a scornful expres- 
sion. Now, that is an evil mood towards Nature or 
towards man." 

" Angry ? " I cried. " Yes ! I was. Who could 
help being angry in face of such deceitful and fad- 
ing splendours ? And then, as if to mock me, out 
comes that flippant and foolish star, dancing on the 
floor of the firmament, and flapping his fingers in 
my face as if in derision? Why, 'tis all mockery, 
mockery, — earth, and sea, and sky, and the faces 
of children, and the roses in my garden ! Under- 
neath all is the grinning visage and the castanets of 
Death ! " 

" Yes ! yes ! " he cried, with an impatience that 
rarely showed itself in his fine face or courtly man- 
ners. " But why anger? Don't you know that the 
inevitable is also the indispensable; and that it 



AUTUMN 57 



would never do for ephemeral beings such as we to 
be brought face to face with immortal beauty ? " 

LXV 

"There! You are always saying hard things," 
I cried. " The inevitable is the indispensable ! What 
is it ? What do you mean ? " ^^^ ^^^^^^^_ 

"What do I mean? Why, we 
have talked of these things a hundred times over, 
and yet you ask me what I mean. I mean simply 
this, that so long as we are but passing shadows, we 
are not capable of being confronted with infinite and 
permanent realities. That in fact, permanence is 
not for us, only the res caducae^ the flitting and fading 
phantoms that belong to an order of things that 
preludes the stability of eternity. Hark, friend ! 
If all that splendour over which you now wept had 
remained, you would have tired of it in an hour and 
gone back to your books, murmuring : * The eye 
is not filled with seeing ; nor the ear satisfied with 
hearing.' " 

It was true ; and I had only to take refuge in 
$ilence. 

" But mark how foolishly you spoke," he con- 
tinued. " You wept over a piece of painted vapour 
— a little aerial moisture reddened by the setting 
sun; and you ridiculed what? The mighty sun, 
Arcturus, to which your sun is but a farthing candle, 
and which is now lighting up with unimaginable 
splendour the atmospheres of planets, to which our 
little earth is but a sand-grain. It is the old, old 
story. We cling to shadows and weep for them ; 
and then blaspheme the Eternal." 



58 PARERGA 



LXVI 

" But, but," I cried, confused, " you speak thus 
because you are not mortal. You have no human 
feeling. You live amongst the stars. 
E°erna1^*^^ There is nothing but cold, frozen 
thought up there on the altitudes 
where you dwell with your poets and dreamers. 
Look you, my friend, the tear that soils the cheek 
of a little child is more to me than if your Arcturus 
were to heave and burst his elephantine bulk, and 
strew all space with his fragments. This is our 
world ; and it is enough for us, at least whilst we 
are here." 

" Quite true," he replied. " Then why are you 
always dreaming, dreaming, dreaming of other 
things? Why did you sadden in that sunset? 
It was like yourself, transient and paltry. Why 
did you not accept it as such ? No ! You went 
out beyond it ; and you said it mocked you ; and 
you, in turn, mocked the Eternal." 

"It's enough to make any one savage," I cried, 
— "this eternal duplicity and deception of Nature. 
Lo ! splendours as of the third heavens, and be- 
hold, they are gone whilst we cry to them to remain 
for ever ! " 

" 'T is not a subject for mockery, or savage 
anger," he said, meekly. 

" What then ? " I cried. 

" Infinite Pity 1 " he said. 



AUTUMN 59 



LXVII 

"And men, with their infinite and ever-winding 
intrigues and deceptions ? " 

" Infinite Pity ! " he said. , ^ . „. 

,, - , , •' , . 1 1 r Infinite Pity. 

"And those white women, halr- 
angels, until you suddenly see some flash of soul 
that reveals their deformity ? " 

" Infinite Pity ! " he said. 

"And those placed aloft in the high domains of 
the world, to be burning and shining lights to their 
generation, until you come near and see the flame 
of their spirit flickering, unsteady, darkened with the 
smut of carbon, and swaying to and fro in every 
gust of passion ? " 

" Infinite Pity ! " he said. 

"And mighty statesmen, ordering the destinies of 
nations, but prepared to change sides and principles 
for a piece of ribbon from a sovereign, or a whiff of 
popularity from the great unwashed ! " 

" Infinite Pity ! " he answered. 

"And teachers, — poets, preachers, prophets, with 
their ^ everlasting yeas ' and ' everlasting noes,' lead- 
ing mankind by the hand up the steep escarpments 
where valour and truth alone can find a footing ; 
and then suddenly descending to the basest levels 
to quarrel over their cups, or play the valet to some 
coroneted patron ? " 

" Infinite Pity ! " he still answered. 



6o PARERGA 



LXVIII 

I shook him off — this Doppelganger of mine. I 

was wroth with him and with myself, wroth, above 

^. . . all, because I had to determine was 

A Distinction. i • i r i 11 

this the final answer — the last re- 
sponse to the eternal enigma. 

Infinite Pity ! 

For all suffering and harmless things, yes ! For 
the redbreast frozen into iron on a January morn- 
ing; for the wounded creature of the woods that 
creeps into its hole to die unseen ; for the silver 
wonder of the brooks that lies gasping on the grass, 
held in the fierce steel of the fisherman ; for my 
aged dog, who lies in his hutch in my yard and 
looks at me with such piteous dying eyes, they 
haunt me all the day long; for our human brother 
or sister, who calls for night, and night forgets its 
mercy, and who watches the faint dawn glimmering 
through the window-pane, with the prospect of an- 
other day of anguish ; for the wretch in the dock, 
with the merciless faces around him, steeled against 
all compassion by merciless law ; for the victim 
helped to the scaffold, his arms supported by 
warders lest he should fall ; for the last October 
sunset, and the last rose that hovers in my garden 
over beds of snow, — for all weak things, for all 
stricken things, for all sad things, and all dying 
things, — Infinite Pity! Yes! By all means! 
But for all the strength that smites pitilessly; for 
all the cunning that intrigues successfully ; for all 
the duplicity that lies boldly ; for all the smiles 
that cheat blandly ; for all the tyranny that grinds 
mercilessly ; for all that is strong and severe and 
pitiless ; for all that is loathsome and degrading 
and maculated, — Infinite Pity ? No ! 



AUTUMN 6 1 



LXIX 

As the prophet of old foretold of the sweet and gen- 
tle Shepherd of Humanity, I think I could gather up 
and fold in my arms all tender, gentle, 
and frail things on earth, no matter shepherd 
how passion-swept, or into what deep 
abysses betrayed by their own inexperience or the 
malevolence of others. Nay, even for one that 
" wanders like a lost soul upon the Stygian bank, 
waiting for waftage," I feel I could have great pity, 
which is akin to great love. But for the base nature, 
that comes to you sometimes in life, rubbing his 
shoulder against yours to pick your pockets, tossing 
out carelessly and confidingly a petty secret to get 
at your sealed and solemn sorrows, and then snap 
you up, as Vivien did Merlin in the enchanted oak ; 
for the creature who comes fawning and purring 
around you, proffering his petty gifts, and protesting 
his disinterestedness until, thrown off your guard, 
you fling the creature what he wants, and he goes 
his way, his hand on the button of his pocket ; for 
all puny souls that have no circumference or scope 
of vision beyond that of a coin, and who think more 
of a piece of ribbon than of the colours of a sunset, 
and whose base insolence to the weak is hardly more 
irritating than their base subservience to the strong, 
— I confess to a feeling of repulsion akin to that 
one feels for slimy and dangerous things ; no great 
wish to crush or annihilate, but a decided desire to 
shun and avoid, and place some impassable thing, an 
ocean or a Sahara, between us ! 



62 PARERGA 



LXX 

And yet — are not these things, too, a subject 
for infinite wonder, — wonder at the miracle of 

adaptation that seems to exist every- 
AdapSn^^°^ where? For, after all, without moral 

evil how can there be moral virtue ? 
If all men, by a miracle, or rather by a transforma- 
tion of our nature from its striking and painful 
contrasts, were reduced to a dead level of uniform 
goodness and perfection, where would be those trials 
that develop all the grandeur of the great and heroic ? 
If Xanthippe did not create the genius of a Socrates, 
she at least has helped us to know him better. 
Without an Antiochus, should we have had the 
heroism of the Maccabees; the grave chastity of Su- 
sannah, without the perfidy of the elders ? Had 
there been no Nero or Domitian, where would be 
the superb record of the countless martyrs of the 
Coliseum ? It needed the malice of a Gesler to 
create a William Tell, the state policy of Napoleon 
to paint on the pages of history the gentle bravery 
of the Due d'Enghien or the fearless manhood of 
Hofer. We could not weep for the martyred nuns 
of Compiegne had there been no Robespierre or 
Marat. And to ascend to the highest — where 
would have been the supreme tragedy of our race, if 
Jewish priests had been generous, and Pilate had 
hearkened to the plea for justice from the lips of his 
wife ? 



AUTUMN 63 



LXXI 

So, too, on a lowlier scale, we find that all good 
seems to arise from evil. Endurance cannot exist 
without hardship, patience without 
annoyance, serenity without pain, §00^3^^^ ^°°* °* 
joyousness without injustice, chastity 
without temptation, meekness without provocation. 
If the world was reduced to one dead level of hap- 
piness, mankind would grow hebetated from want 
of energy. It was cold and hunger that framed the 
flint arrowheads and bone needles, the relics of pre- 
Adamite man over yonder in Kent's Cavern. It is 
the sense of the same evils that puts Australian 
beef on the London markets, and places the skin 
of an Arctic seal on the shoulders of some woman 
of fashion. Necessity, that is, pain, begets energy; 
and energy develops faculties that otherwise would 
weaken and perish from lack of exercise. In the 
moral order, it is the same. Moral evil begets 
Virtue. The narrow, distorted, and vicious soul, 
prone to deceit and aggression, and chuckling at its 
own trivial and transitory success over some larger 
and nobler mind, is quite unconscious that it has 
been the means, the fertilizing agent, of a larger 
growth in the latter. " All things cooperate unto 
good for those called to be saints," said the Apostle. 
And may not this principle be the strongest proof 
of immortality, — that the greatest evil shall produce 
the largest good, and from the dark and bitter 
root of death shall spring the undying flower of 
immortality .? 



64 PARERGA 



LXXII 

Two books lay on my table — two books by the 

man who, if he has not interpreted rightly the 

spirit of the age, has at least laid 

Two Books. ,'^ • 1 ••11 1 • • 1 

bare, with a pitiless hand, its turpitude 
and deformity. They were the Kreutzer Sonata and 
the Resurrection of Count Leo Tolstoy. I had read 
them before, with unutterable loathing. I took 
them up now to refute my Doppelganger and end this 
tale of Infinite Pity. Here, I thought, is humanity 
under its most fetid and loathsome aspect. Let us 
see how it appeals. Yes ! nothing could be worse. 
These books should never have been written — 
should never be read. For such a race there is 
nothing but destruction, earthquakes yawning be- 
neath its feet, or lightnings as of Sodom smiting 
from above. One could not help recalling the lines 
of Dante : 

** Ed io, che di mirar mi stava inteso, 
Vidi genti fangose in quel pantano, 
Ignude tutte, e con sembiante ofFeso. 

" Questi si percotean, non pur con mano/ 
Ma con la testa, e col petto, e co' piedi, 
Troncandosi co' denti a brano a brano/' 

Canto VII, 109-115. 

^ "And I, who stood intent upon beholding. 
Saw people mud-sprent in that lagoon, 
All of them naked and with angry look. 
They smote each other not alone with hands. 
But with the head, and with the breast and feet. 
Tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth. " 



AUTUMN 65 



LXXIII 

What pity could be lavished here? What pity 
for men, selfish, brutal, pleasure-loving, heedless 
of the dread issues that follow the con- 
summation of their crimes ? What pity hodI^^"^ °^ 
for those women, frail, intriguing, sink- 
ing deeper and deeper into the awful Styx of infamy 
into which passion had plunged them ? What pity 
for officials, who had lost even the very semblance 
of humanity in the exercise of their brutal and 
bestial duties ? What pity for prisoners, hardened 
in guilt, and flinging aside all decencies under the 
despair of their degradation ? What pity for the 
husband, consumed with jealousy of his wife ? 
What pity for the wife, repudiating her sacred 
duties for the sake of her appearance ? 

Yes ! it was all brutal, loathsome, animal, in its 
disgusting details. 

And yet, when all is ended, and one sees the 
feeble struggling upward of the diviner instinct 
under such an awful weight of human depravity ; 
when one reads of PozdnishefF struck with remorse 
at the thought of how the fatal steel pierced his 
wife's corset, and how he felt when the dagger ran 
easily through the soft, yielding flesh, and he saw her 
swollen and distorted features under the death- 
agony; when one reads of Katusha, redeemed at last, 
and NekhludoflF following up his one sin with a life- 
repentance, the thought will occur that the race is 
not hopelessly lost; that there is a gleam of hope 
yet irradiating the Stygian gloom of modern life. 
And the word will spring unbidden to the lips, — 
Nemesis and Destiny? No. Infinite Pity ? Yes! 
s 



66 PARERGA 



Section III 
LXXIV 

With all their despotisms, and arbitrary and fero- 
cious customs, we can forgive the Easterns because 
of two features in their character, — 
their dignity, and their tenderness 
towards all weak and suft'ering and ignoble things. 
The former feature stands out in superb contrast 
with the essential vulgarity which, side by side with 
commercial immorality, is a characteristic of our 
Western civilisation of to-day. Some writer has 
said that the manners of the rising generation are 
non-existent. The reason is plain. The foundation 
of all good manners, and, indeed, of all morality, is 
reverence ; and reverence is not an attribute of our 
age. Nay, irreverence, the supercilious contempt 
and levelling down of all things to some common 
denominator of vulgarity and baseness, appears to 
be the peculiar feature of advanced civilisation. 
And, as a species infima^ or lowest grade in that vul- 
garity, is the spirit of curiosity, — the desire to 
know all secrets ; the prurience for seeking out and 
exposing all kinds of hidden arcana, in religion, in 
science, in domestic life, in social intercourse ; and a 
kind of ghoulish delight when some precious secret 
is laid bare for base imagination to batten upon. 



AUTUMN 67 



LXXV 

This spirit of evil is everywhere. It lurks in our 
legislation, it inspires atheistic science, it revels in 
law-courts and scandals, it is the 
basis of unholy romances and novels. curi^shy * °^ 
It hides behind the arras or in the 
cabinets of bedchambers, like that unspeakable 
lachimo in " Cymbeline," or some old, garrulous, 
chattering Polonius, who lurks inside the friendly 
cover of tapestries to find secrets, and perhaps his 
death. There is nothing too sacred for its prying 
eyes. The things that hitherto men guarded as the 
apple of the eye are ruthlessly torn open and ex- 
posed. The governments of the world empower a 
boy-clerk, who has just successfully passed some 
trivial civil-service examination, to probe and search 
into the most private affairs, and demand, with 
contemptuous insolence, a full return of personal 
incomes and revenues ; and those secret accounts, 
which men kept hidden even from their wives and 
children, are now seen and inspected by a stranger, 
who may reveal them, or use them for personal 
profit or revenge against the unhappy man, who is 
thus placed absolutely in his power. And after 
death, by the same iniquitous legislation, that is 
utterly regardless of private rights, the last will and 
testament that had been locked up from the eye of 
the nearest and dearest friend is ruthlessly opened, 
and exposed to the gaze of an irreverent and scofiing 
public in the pages of every newspaper. The excuse 
is, the public demands it, which proves our thesis, 
that the world has become hopelessly and irredeem- 
ably vulgar. 



68 PARERGA 



LXXVI 

Contrast with this the traditional reticence and 
dignity and reserve of the East. Even in the seclu- 
sion and inviolable secrecy of the 
^^ °^' Oriental harem there is a certain 

sacredness which no child of the Prophet dare vio- 
late. The Tashmak of the East is symboHcal. Sym- 
bolical also is the abandonment of the veil as an 
article of dress in the West; and with this aban- 
donment, and, as a necessary consequence of it, the 
loathsome realism and personal exposure of our 
ball-rooms and theatres. When will mankind un- 
derstand that clothing is the only thing that gives 
its uncouth form the semblance of dignity and 
beauty, and that secrecy is the guarantee of its 
safety; that reserve is the first and last passport 
to respect; and reticence the only shield against 
danger ? " He wears his heart on his sleeve " used 
to be an encomium until the second phrase, " for 
daws to peck at," showed its intrinsic extravagance 
and folly. But the fact remains that Western 
civilisation, fiercely contrasted in other ways with 
that of the " unspeakable Turk," has much to learn 
from the latter in his dignity and reserve, and 
his majestic eloquence and martial prowess, when 
circumstances demand them. 

LXXVII 

If the characteristics of modern society can be 

taken as symptoms of its final evolution, and its 

organisation as the growth and out- 

A Vicious Circle. ° r ^u ^ • -^ u 

come or the centuries, it would 
seem that we are evolving backward into a con- 



AUTUMN 69 



dition of chaotic nature, and that, after all, the 
philosophy of Jean Jacques, so admired by George 
Eliot and Emerson that they dated their mental 
formation from his "Confessions," must be accepted 
as the ultimate word in the historical development 
of human civilisation. Our over-refinement has 
toppled over into barbarism. The vast progress 
of the centuries has been developing in a vicious 
circle. In pushing too feverishly forward to the 
goal of human perfection, we are plunging into 
primitive simplicities. " Naked and unashamed " 
is our condition. Hence the pessimism of the age, 
which is only another word for its realism. For 
just as your realist boasts that he only tells things 
as he finds them ; that " all things are pure to the 
pure " ; and that " Art must be pursued solely for 
the sake of Art," your pessimist declares that he is 
the only one who has the courage to face facts, and 
make them known to the world. 



LXXVIII 

There was much solid truth in that word which 
Lowell spoke to Englishmen, on the occasion of 
the unveiling of the Coleridge me- 
morial, when he warned them that, if °™^" ^ *^"^' 
they were to regain the intellectual altitude of their 
ancestors, they must give up the adoration of com- 
mon-sense, and study the advantages of imagination 
and idealism. Men may decry romanticism in poem 
or novel, but it will be found in the end the source 
and secret of all those great regenerative processes 
which have saved the souls of nations from extinc- 
tion. For as, in ordinary human nature, the ten- 
dency is earthwise and downward until it is elevated 



70 PARERGA 



by religion or philosophy, so in the polities of na- 
tions it will be found that, where materialism is 
dominant as a guiding and ruling spirit, evidences 
of degeneration speedily appear. And the process 
moves onward to destruction unless, by some tre- 
mendous force in literature or religion, the masses 
are flung backward and upward to the heights where 
imagination and the ideal reign triumphant. And 
the masters in romanticism are the supreme mas- 
ters, — Shakspeare, Schiller, Calderon. These are 
the fountains of nationhood, as well as the masters 
in their craft. 

LXXIX 

The Grand Vizier of Haroun was dead, and his 
place had to be filled. But here the Prince was at 

fault. Not one of his courtiers could 
Sand viTi^r. ^e deem qualified to fill that exalted 

place. But he was compassionate as 
well as just; and he deemed it wise to allow his 
candidates to judge themselves, and by their judg- 
ment should they be judged. Some might deem 
the Prince's action cruel ; some might think it con- 
temptuous. But no, Al Raschid was just ; and he 
had heard like an echo from afar off the words : 
" Out of thine own mouth shall I judge thee ! " 
Pie appointed a day, therefore, on which the aspi- 
rants to the high dignity should meet him and 
declare their qualifications. They came, a mighty 
crowd, and the Prince was much afraid. Out of so 
many, but one could be chosen ; and — the rest? 

The first was a venerable man, of high stature, 
his great forked beard resting on his breast, and his 
garments tinkling with the little bells that hung on 
the fimbriae of his vest and toga. 



AUTUMN 71 



" I have come, great Prince," he said, " to claim 
the post of Grand Vizier to your Royal Highness, 
made vacant by the lamented death of your late 
adviser. Permit me to present to your Royal High- 
ness the testimonials to my worth and honour." 

Herewith he called a slave, who laboured up 
through the long apartment, sweating and toiling 
beneath a fearful burthen. This he deposited at 
the feet of his master, who unrolled it. The vast 
parchments, written all over in Hebrew and Greek, 
seemed to carpet the marble floor, and even to 
aspire to decorate the walls and ceiling. 

The Prince looked on unconcernedly. 

" These vast rolls, I presume," said the Prince, 
" are what men say of thee to thy face. Hast 
thou a record of what is said when thou art not 
present ? " 

The venerable man shook his head. 

"No?" said the Prince. "Well, then, this is 
what men say : tell me what thou hast done. Thy 
years look many." 

" 1 have read the Al-Koran two thousand and 
fifty times," said the sage, " and I have interpreted 
it to the multitude. My disciples have sate at my 
feet wondering. I have illuminated them, and they 
have carried the lamp of learning beyond the seas." 

" Venerable Father, thou hast done well. Go in 
peace ! " said the Prince. 

The old man looked surprised, but bade his slave 
gather up the vast volume of parchment that filled 
the apartment. But the Prince stopped him. 

" Nay, nay, venerable Father," he said. " Thy 
servant is weary even unto death. Go thou to thy 
house, and my slaves will follow with thy goods." 



72 PARERGA 



LXXX 

When the aged man had departed, the second 

aspirant appeared. He, too, was old ; yet the fires 

of inspiration seemed to burn in his 

Candfdau* cyes as he stood in a kind of awful 

majesty before his Prince. 

" And thou," said the latter, calmly allowing his 
eyes to wander over the stranger's face and the cab- 
alistic signs on his garments, "whence art thou.? 
and what hast thou to say for thyself?" 

" Knowest thou not," said the stranger, with 
awful and commanding dignity, " that I am the 
Oracle of Colchis, who see before and after, and 
trace the tortuous paths of men ^ From me noth- 
ing is hidden, nothing secret. I can probe all hearts 
and search all minds. The universe hath for me no 
enigma. The courses of the stars and their myste- 
rious influences on human destinies are to me as the 
alphabet to a child ; and there are no arcana beneath 
the earth that can escape my gaze. The most sub- 
tle things I can search out and reduce to their com- 
binations, and the most complex and entangled 
things I can resolve into their elements. Test me, 
O Prince, if thou pleasest. What wouldst thou 
know ? And earth and sky and sea shall yield up 
their secrets to me for thee ! " 

The Prince looked grave. 

" Knowledge is a beautiful and worthy thing," he 
said. " It is a pearl of great price. Allah has been 
good to thee, venerable Father. But hath not some 
wise man said: 'My secret to myself!' Thou 
knowest too much, venerable Father ! A king 
must have secrets even from his wife. Go thou, 
too, in peace ! Allah be with thee ! " 



AUTUMN 73 



LXXXI 

Then a third came, and advanced his claim to be 
Grand Vizier of the kingdom. 

" Know thou, O great Prince," he said, " that I 
am he who hath rescued from the sands of Sahara 
a portion of your kingdom, and hath 
turned it from a desert into a smihng ^onist^"^' 
plain of plenty. By a strange and 
incommunicable secret I have poured the waters of 
life across the waste and burning sands, and re- 
deemed from the barrenness of desolation a whole 
province, yea, even a kingdom. Where the sand- 
wastes curled beneath the south wind and were 
wreathed into pillars of destruction, the vine and 
the olive are now growing ; and I have drunk of 
the grapes of Abara, where the nose of the camel 
sniffed in vain for water. My herds are as vast as 
the clouds that sail up on the south wind ; and for 
every beast that chews the cud in the shelter of my 
palms there is a black Numidian in my household. 
My sceptre is dipped from sea to sea; and the 
hoofs of my horses tear the earth from the base of 
yonder Atlas to the Pyramids." 

" Thou art great and mighty," replied the Prince 
Haroun ; " why should'st thou seek the humility 
of a place in my household ? " 

" I would teach thee, O Prince," he repHed, " to 
be great and powerful and beneficent. I would 
have thee do even as I ; and conquer Nature in- 
stead of kingdoms." 

" And for whom hast thou wrought all this vast 
and laborious work ? " said the Prince. " Who 
are thy subjects, and how doth it profit them ? " 



74 PARERGA 



"Subjects I have none to serve ; slaves I have 
countless to obey. I am the lord who hath wrought 
and fashioned these things unto himself." 

" Ah, then ! Go in peace," said the Prince. 
" The eagle must not dwindle into the hawk ; nor 
the leopard into the weasel. Allah be with thee ! " 



LXXXII 

Then Haroun al Raschid donned his disguise; 
and at night, when the oil-lamps flared in the angles 

of the streets, and all men were gath- 
"uTsld" ^'^' e^ed around their hearths, he sallied 

forth with one humble follower, and 
passed rapidly through the deserted marts and be- 
neath the silent and shining marbles of palaces, and 
came to a suburb of the city, where only the mule- 
teers of the desert and the camel-drivers and the 
charcoal-burners lived. Here he paused and looked 
around and questioned. Many a rude answer, or 
ruder blow smote the Prince : but he was patient. 
At last, he came to where a prayerful and humble 
man was making his midnight orisons to the 
Highest; and, without invitation, the Prince and 
his follower entered. The holy man turned not 
away from his prayer. He was speaking to Allah ; 
and besides Allah, there was no one else in the 
Universe. The Prince waited long, till the man had 
finished his prayers and risen up with the " Salem 
alaicom " on his lips. Then he bade his guests be 
seated, and was silent. 



AUTUMN 



75 



LXXXIII 

"I would know, Father," said the Prince, "some- 
thing of thee." 

" Man knoweth not aught of him- a p i,- 
self," replied the fakir ; " speak to 
Allah." 

" Thou art wise, O Father," replied the Prince. 
" The man who speaketh aught of himself to 
strangers, and all men are strangers unto each other, 
hath kept the empty scabbard and cast away the 
sword. But who are these ? " 

" This," said the fakir, pointing to a hairless, 
mangy cur, " is a beautiful dog, fit to be petted by 
the houris of the Prophet in Paradise ; and this," 
pointing to a heap of rags, " is a fair virgin, outcast 
from her friends, and come hither to be a lamp unto 
my midnight, a rose unto my wilderness." 

" Hast thou aught that we may eat ? " said the 
Prince. 

" Yea, even these," said the fakir, taking down a 
bundle of dried dates and figs that hung from the 
ceiling, and offering them to the Prince and his 
companion. 

" I would see thee eat also," said the Prince. 

And the man first handed a date to the dog, 
who devoured it greedily and bit his master's hand ; 
and then he drew towards him the face of the girl. 
It was yellow and pitted, and the sightless eyes had 
pearls on them, like opals. He put into her mouth 
food, which she took querulously, and then, turn- 
ing away, lapsed into indifi^erence again. Then, and 
only then, the man ate a fig in silence. 



76 PARERGA 



LXXXIV 

" I would ask thee three questions," said the 
Prince. " And first : when is man greatest ? " 

" When he laughs amid his tears ; 
Questions. when he suffers, and is silent ; when 

he labours, although he foresees he 
never shall be paid," answered the fakir. 

" Where is woman greatest ? " asked the Prince. 

" By the cradle of her child, by the couch of the 
dying, at the feet of God," said the man. 

" When is God greatest ? " asked the Prince. 

" There are no degrees in God," said the man de- 
voutly. " He is always greatest and best." 

" Come ! " said the Prince to his companion ; " I 
have found him whom I sought." 



LXXXV 

The days are drawing in swiftly and surely. It 
is now quite dark at five o'clock. I can just see the 
^, . . empty garden-beds black against the 

Closing in. r J o & 

green grass. 1 he trees are colourless 
blots against the pallid sky. I try to think what a 
summer evening, only a few weeks ago had been at 
this very hour. I try to call up the long splen- 
dours of the sun, as they rested on tree and bush 
and house, and on the thick wall of verdure 
that stretches from horizon to horizon across the 
way. I try to summon up and picture the gar- 
den-beds beautiful and radiant with all their varied 
colours ; the rose-trees nodding under their fragrant 
burthen ; the gladioli in the borders, rainbow-tinted; 
the great stars of the asters and the heavy blossoms 



AUTUMN 77 



of the dahlias; the sweet, pure, fragrant air; the 
swallows cutting it in every kind of segment. In 
vain ! the present obliterates the past. Imagination 
cannot conquer reality. The mind-picture will not 
stay in face of the eye-picture which tells — here is 
darkness and cold and gloom, and the bareness of 
trees and the naked shrubs, and the silence broken 
by no song of bird, or hum of bee, only by the 
hoarse murmur of the waterfall far away, and the 
groan of a sick stag over there in the forest. 

LXXXVI 

I think this goes far towards explaining the feeble 
impression made upon us by death. There is 
really nothing so surprising as the 
callousness with which men regard S^Pf"''"''" °^ 
death ; and their strange indifference 
to their own relations with it. There is nothing on 
earth that should be more impressive than the sight 
of an open grave, with all its ghastly accompani- 
ments of skulls and bones, and the poor effigy of 
clay in the long yellow box that is waiting for its 
own interment and consequent dissolution. One 
seems to hear the solemn voice and warning from 
the dead : Hodie mihi I Cras tibil " To-day for me ; 
to-morrow for you ! " And yet the imagination, 
accentuated by the inevitable certainty, will not 
apply the lesson to ourselves. No ! Here we are 
living, our pulses beating rhythmically, our breath 
coming freely, life running joyously throughout 
our veins. No ! we cannot die. Death is not for 
us. We only grasp the present. Reason speaks 
warningly and infallibly. We dare not think that 
we can be exceptions to the universal law. But do 



78 PARERGA 



we realise it ? We cannot ! The reality of our 
present existence obliterates the certainties of reason 
and the possibilities of imagination. And so, 
though "we look before and after, and pine for 
what is not," our lives are really centred in the 
present. We only make ourselves miserable for our 
memories and anticipations of a dream within a 
dream. 

LXXXVII 

Bearing on this do you remember that awful 

chapter, " Profanation," in Pierre Loti's " Impres- 

, . sions," — of the cool indifference of 

Pierre Loti. , ,. , , , ^ 

the grave-digger when he sought tor 
the remains of the four young Breton sailors who had 
been hastily interred, and found not coffins, with 
their still and secret burdens, but only fragments of 
blue cloth and a motley collection of human bones ; 
of his French cynicism when he called for baskets 
to remove these human relics ; of his momentary 
horror, when he found the red ribs and breast-bones 
of one poor lad a casket of white, writhing maggots ; 
of his rapid recovery from such weak and culpable 
surprise, and his resumption of an attitude of cool 
indifference as he rubbed the larva from the under 
side of a piece of wood, and quietly shook aside 
into the earth the awful life that had been generated 
from the decomposition of these human forms ; of 
the momentary horror of the spectator, and the im- 
mediate business-like indifference, as if those things 
had no concern for the living ? 



AUTUMN 



79 



LXXXVIII 

I know no equal to such Dantesque horrors, ex- 
cept that scene narrated so graphically by Trevelyan, 
of the disinterment and cremation of 
the bodies of Williams and Shelley on wniiams. 
the sands near Via Reggio. It is a 
piece of Homeric or uSlschylean tragedy suddenly 
placed on the stage of events in the dawn of the nine- 
teenth century, and carried out with a realism, an 
adaptation of pagan rites and ritual that no poetic 
artist, neither a Landor, nor a Swinburne, nor a 
Morris could have imagined as a central scene of 
epic or tragedy. Listen ! 

" The first indication of their having found the body was 
the appearance of the end of a black silk handkerchief. — I 
grabbed this out with my stick, for we were not allowed to 
touch anything with our hands ; then some shreds of linen 
were met with, and a boot with the bone of the leg and the 
foot in it. On the removal of a layer of brush-wood, all 
that now remained of my lost friend was exposed, — a shape- 
less mass of bones and flesh. The limbs separated from the 
trunk on being touched. 

" ' Is that a human body ? ' exclaimed Byron ; ' why, it 's 
more like the carcass of a sheep, or any other animal, than 
a man ; this is a satire on our pride and folly.' 

"I pointed to the letters E. E. W. on the black silk 
handkerchief. 

" Byron, looking on, muttered : ' The entrails of a worm 
hold together longer than the potter's clay of which man is 
made.' " 



8o PARERGA 



LXXXIX 

So far for poor Williams. Let us pass on to 
Shelley's disinterment. 

" We were startled and drawn together 
tion. ^^ * *"" ' by a dull, hollow sound that followed the 
blow of a mattock ; the iron had struck a 
skull and the body was soon uncovered. Lime had been 
strewn on it ; this, or decomposition, had the effect of stain- 
ing it of a dark and ghastly indigo colour. Byron asked me 
to preserve the skull for him ; but remembering that he had 
formerly used one as a drinking-cup, I was determined Shel- 
ley's should not be so profaned. After the fire was well 
kindled, we repeated the ceremony of the previous day ; and 
more wine was poured over Shelley's dead body than he had 
consumed during his life. The heat from the sun and fire 
was so intense that the atmosphere was tremulous and wavy. 
The corpse fell open, and the heart was laid bare. The 
frontal bone of the skull, where it had been struck with the 
mattock, fell off; and as the back of the head rested on 
the red-hot bottom bars of the furnace, the brain literally 
seethed, bubbled, and boiled, as in a cauldron, for a very 
long time. 

" Byron could not face the scene ; he withdrew to the 
beach, and swam off to the Bolivar." 

But is it Trevelyan, or Leigh Hunt, that tells 
how the three friends, after such an awful and im- 
pressive scene, drove back to Pisa, and made the 
pine woods ring with their BacchanaHan songs and 
laughter ? 

XC 

Clearly the Winter is upon us almost before we 

realise it. The light of the firmament has been 

shaded by the great Artist-Hand ; 

rey les. ^^^ ^j^^ skies from their altitudes of 

infinite azure have swooped down in a grey, leaden 



AUTUMN 8 1 



dome of vapour, that sometimes hangs pendent, 
sometimes weeps with excess of moisture. The 
days have been drawn in gradually, but swiftly, as 
you would close up the folds of a camera, or the 
joints of a telescope. It seems only yesterday that 
we had twilight up to midnight ; and then the dawn. 
Now it is night always, not so terrible as in Norway or 
the arctic regions, but yet a muffled and stifled day- 
light, and with it the curious silence that touches all 
things with a wand of mystery and an atmosphere of 
peace. Unwelcome ? Oh, no ! Thrice welcome 
rather ! I think silence is a kind of worship — a 
solemn latreia in the great Temple of Nature. 
Wordsworth makes it a teacher, — a spiritual, un- 
robed, or disembodied priest, who, like Echo, 
daughter of Air and Tellus, might have been pun- 
ished for his loquacity whilst in the flesh, and has 
now to preside over the solemnities of Nature with 
his finger on his lips. At any rate, he is a mighty 
teacher. One learns more from him, and deeper 
and more mysterious things, than from the sense- 
less babble and clatter of mortals. And "silence 
is the custodian of righteousness," said the great 
doctor of Bethlehem. And a higher than he : " In 
silence and in hope shall be your strength." 

XCI 

I appreciate the silence of Winter all the more 
from its contrast with the eternal and discordant 
noises of the Summer. Yes ! even 
in this remote Irish village, far away wfnter.° 
from trains, which are the network 
of civihsation, and nestling in a deep well, sheltered 
by the impenetrable umbrage of woods and forests. 



82 PARERGA 



yea, even here, are noises as of Tophet or — Charing 
Cross. In the early morning a certain ragged phi- 
losopher, with the voice of a stentor, commences his 
day right under my window with wonderful specu- 
lations on things in general. He is instantly joined 
by another leisured professor of Do-Nothingism, 
who has contrived for many years, for his hair is 
grey, to solve successfully that problem, which is a 
puzzle to political economists, — how to get on on 
nothing a year. They commence an amiable dis- 
cussion on things in general, — the things of yester- 
day and to-day, — yea, even the impenetrable future. 
Sometimes they wax wroth at the general deordina- 
tion that seems to obtain throughout the universe ; 
and the inexorable but wanton Fate, which will not 
allow them to set all things right. Sometimes the 
voice of the stentor rises into an emphasis, which I 
hope his guardian angel will forget; and the deep 
bass of his companion is broken in a sorrowful Jere- 
miad, which can only be terminated in one way. 
Seven o'clock strikes. Bells ring out, — convent 
bells for morning mass ; mill bells for labour. The 
first public house is legally open, and I have a res- 
pite — a little peace. 

XCII 

But instantly comes the creaking and jolting of 
donkey-carts of every size and shape to the cream- 
ery. Through some mischievous 
Street Noises. ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ Creamery happens 

to be placed just round the corner, and within an 
appreciable distance of my house. Now I have a 
settled, deeply rooted conviction that no greater evil 
was ever invented for this island of unhappy desti- 



AUTUMN 83 



nies than these creameries; and I repeat what I once 
heard a famous millionaire (no less than Mr. Car- 
negie) declare, in answer to some amusing story about 
betting, " If it were in my power I would give you, 
sir (I mean the inventor of creameries), two months 
of the hottest temperature you could bear in the 
next world." But there it is, and there it will re- 
main. And during these three hours of the morn- 
ing, a slow, solemn procession of donkey-carts, each 
with its solitary tankard of sweet milk, comes creep- 
ing down the high road, across the bridge and on 
to the creamery. And if you want to see the 
dreamy and mysterious Celt, here he is ! and here 
she is ! Slowly, at the rate of a mile every two 
hours, the procession files on. The donkeys, in a 
meditative mood, scarcely lift their feet, and seem 
to proceed in a kind of shuffle, ears bent down, 
brain dreaming, I suppose, on unlimited hay. And 
meditatively, dreamily, solemnly, the drivers hang 
listlessly on the cart, looking nowhere in particular, 
only suffering themselves to be led by the instincts 
of their beasts. And very often it is a young girl, 
her shawl wrapped around her thick hair, her chin 
resting gently on her hand, her eyes cast down, 
dreaming, dreaming, dreaming ! 

XCIII 

By some occult but general rule, however, they all 
seem to wake up just as they come right under my 
window; and with furious beatings 

-,,',, , - . ^r Creameries. 

or their donkeys, and fierce cries or 
" G'won ! G'won ! G'won 1 " sometimes emphasised 
with a curse, they force the animals into a gallop. 
The noise and clatter are maddening. Sometimes I 



84 PARERGA 



think of what the Sage of Chelsea would say if he 
were here in my study. How he would invoke the 
Eternities and the Immensities ! How he would 
invent from his too copious resources of unbridled 
and unlicensed speech, epithets for the hated Irish ! 
And how he would philosophise, and spill all the 
vials of his wrath on the narrow, mammonish, ma- 
terialistic spirit that compels these farmers to send 
in the richness and fat of their flocks and herds to 
swell the exchequer of an English speculator, whilst 
consumptive girls here in the village cannot get a 
glass of milk to wet their parched and splintered 
lips ; and mothers are compelled to poison their 
infants with black acrid tea because the farmers, for 
a little profit, send every glass of milk from their 
dairies to swell the tankards that pass under my 
window every morning to the great condensed-milk 
factory six miles away. O mad prophet of the un- 
bridled tongue ! there is at least one who, differ- 
ing from you in everything else, would cheerfully 
join in your philippics here. 



XCIV 

And then, all day long, comes the vast army of 
idlers of every rank, who apparently have nothing 
^. „ . else to do but to drive harassed beasts 

City Noises. , , , r j t-i 

up and down berore my door. I he 
carts appear to be all empty ; but they drive and 
drive, and rattle and creak over broken stones and 
crossings, and I say : " What superb nerves these 
fellows have ! They seem to enjoy the hideous 
clatter ; or is it that they are narcotised by that 
thick, oily, black tobacco that every one appears to 
smoke? The cracking of whips, an amusement in 



AUTUMN 85 



which Germans seemed to find great delight, used to 
drive Schopenhauer almost mad. The barrel-organ 
and the crowing of cocks were the especial torments 
of Carlyle. Clearly there is nothing for it but to 
wrap up in cotton-wool the "genus irritabile vatum"; 
and put them in sound-proof chambers, and get the 
" profanum vulgus " to cease forever their profane 
noises. But how then shall we carry out Emerson's 
prescription for literary men and especially women, 
to spend all their years after sixty in some city? He 
argues wisely and deeply as usual ; and there is much 
sense in his theory that the country life is only 
suited when the faculties are fresh, but that when 
they grow hebetated and weak they need the stimu- 
lus of human society to reanimate them. But the 
noise and tumult and dust and clangour of a great 
city — is not the price too much for the transient 
gain ? 

xcv 

Yet " Back to the land ! Back to the land ! " 
is the cry, and the opportune and legitimate cry of 
all social reformers or economists who „, ,^ „ ^, 

, , . r ' 1 World-Problems. 

have the interests or nations at heart. 
Here in Ireland, this little rugged rock in the North 
Atlantic, we are prone to think that our problems 
and difficulties are our own peculiar property which, 
except for sympathetic assistance, should have no 
concern for the world at large. We are so insular 
in our ideas that we do not see that just as we shape 
the characteristics of other conquered races, so are 
we working out the same issues. Our little griev- 
ances, which English statesmen laugh at, are in 
reality not Irish problems, but world-problems. If 
the quadrature of the circle could be solved in Ire- 



86 PARERGA 



land, it would affect the universe. And if we can 
solve the labour-problem, the problem of taxation, 
the land problem, we shall solve them not only for 
our own benefit, but for humanity at large, and for 
generations yet unborn. Under all that is unde- 
sirable and unendurable in politics, I see humanity 
struggling upward and outward towards great and 
lasting issues. But I think it is a mistake to im- 
agine that Acts of Parliament can lift a race, as if 
by hydraulic power, from the marsh to the mountain ; 
and I think history testifies that it is not by Persic 
laws, Draconian codes, Justinian Institutes, or Codes 
Napoleon that the best elements of humanity have 
been developed, and the race, or nations composing 
the race, have been placed in the path of freedom 
and progress. 

XCVI 

For example, whilst we are deploring the exodus 

of our people from their native land, this chronic 

hemorrhage that has been going on 

Their Solution. c i • . r j • 

for nearly sixty years, we find a sim- 
ilar exodus from every country in Europe, save 
France. Whilst we complain of the fatal tendency 
of our people to flee the land and congregate in 
great cities, we are reminded that in certain English 
counties the land is so deserted that its owners are 
glad to have their estates occupied merely for pay- 
ment of rates. Whilst we deplore the compulsory 
celibacy of our young men and women, and the 
growing disinclination to assume the responsibili- 
ties of marriage, we are reminded by advices from 
America and England that what we thought a local 
and limited evil is in reality as wide as the earth. 
But all this should be an encouragement, not a 



AUTUMN 87 



deterrent, to put forth all our energies, and, by 
solving here on this little island our insular and 
local problems, pave the way for the solution of the 
wider and more intricate problems that are exercis- 
ing the faculties of humanitarians from the rising to 
the setting sun. And there is but one solution, — 
the creation of new and wholesome ideas by means 
of broad and liberal systems of education. 

XCVII 

On reading over to-day the " Lady of Shalott " 
for my little children in school, and demanding an 
explanation from them of the poem, 
which is clearly allegorical, I saw, as Ihai^?.'^^ °^ 
in a flash of light, what deep mean- 
ing was hidden in the poet's mind. I cannot help 
thinking that the idea must have been suggested 
to Tennyson by these lines of Shakspeare, which 
Goethe was so fond of quoting, — 

" We are such stuff as dreams are made of. 
And our little life is rounded by a sleep, — " 

just as " Mariana In the Moated Grange " was sug- 
gested by the lines in " Measure for Measure." And 
the meaning appears to be that, for certain dream- 
ers or poets, it is best to regard the earth and its 
mortals as passing shadows, and to see them only 
in the mirror of fancy and imagination, for it is 
death to high hopes and dreams to turn away from 
the shadow and face the terrible reality. 

♦* She hath heard a whisper say, 
A curse is on her if she stay 

To look down to Camelot. 
She knows not what the curse may be. 
And so she weaveth steadily. 
And little other care hath she, 

The Lady of Shalott. " 



PARERGA 



Precisely ! Poets and philosophers and dreamers 
must keep steadily at their task, " weaving by night 
and day the magic web," and never turning to 
watch in the bald and bare realities of life the replica 
of the fairy images wrought by the spell of imagina- 
tion in the mirror of their own fancies. 



XCVIII 

Hence, one finds that every poet who turns 
away from his magic mirror and stares boldly at 

the realities of human existence be- 
mrror°^^^' comes a confirmed pessimist. The 

genial Shakspeare, whose high fore- 
head and calm face seemed the very symbols of 
placid content with himself and the world, became, 
we know from several passages in his dramas, and 
from all his sonnets, a soured and disappointed 
man. Tennyson abandoned his sunny creations — 
his Orianas and Doras and Claribels — for the 
gloomy pessimism of " Locksley Hall : Sixty years 
after," and " Despair," and " Maud." Dante 
gnashed his teeth at the world. Browning was an 
optimist, because he never saw things in the magic 
mirror; but face to face from his early manhood, 
in the happy realism of social life, he saw men and 
women as they are, and was never compelled to 
exchange the aerial sprites of poetic fancy for the 
Calibans of ordinary life. No man can be an 
optimist after fifty, unless he has been wise enough 
never to gaze into the mirror of youthful fancies 
and hopes, but to see and watch from the beginning 
the stern if sombre realities of every-day existence. 
It is a sad day in every human life when it can be 
said : 



AUTUMN 



" Out flew the web and floated wide. 
The mirror cracked from side to side. 
* The curse is come upon me,' cried 
The Lady of Shalott. " 

XCIX 

Hence poets are quite out of place at five o'clock 
teas and other social gatherings. We look to them 
for some demonstration of their high 
calling, — some manifestation of our society"*^ 
belief, and possibly their conviction, 
that they are not as other men. We like to see a 
Wordsworth, clothed in his shepherd's plaid, and 
walking in royal solitude along the summits of his 
Cumberland or Westmoreland hills ; we do not 
want to see him gnawing raisins behind green lamp- 
shades in some commonplace London drawing- 
room. Shelley, in his nautilus-craft, sailing before 
the wind along the shores of the Gulf of Spezzia, 
and wondering whether the next moment will not 
reveal to him the great secret, is quite well placed 
for the poet of "The Skylark " and "The Cloud." 
We hate to think of him watching Constantia sing- 
ing; or practising pistol-shots with Byron. Keats, 
too, we can understand, dreaming out on Hamp- 
stead Heath, or by the blue waves at Teignmouth. 
But the Keats, revealed in his insane letters to 
Fanny Brawne, is a terrible disillusion. And 
Browning — the Browning of "Saul" and " Abt 
Vogler," and the colossal poems that a pigmy gen- 
eration cannot yet, even when standing on tiptoe, 
measure — think of Browning standing, like a 
gawkish school-boy, with Mrs. Carlyle's tea-kettle 
in his hand ! And think oi our shame when we hear 
him rebuked for his awkwardness, and petulantly 
ordered to put it down ! 



90 PARERGA 



And Carlyle himself, how fearfully and terribly 
he lost by coming down from the Holy Mountain 
and mixing with the common herd in 
" ^ ^' the streets ! Had he remained in the 

lonely seclusion of Craigenputtock, and issued from 
thence, such epics as Sartor, we should not be forced 
to think of him, as Herbert Spencer and Mill found 
him, a garrulous and angry monologist, intolerant 
of interruption and argument, and seeking in his 
Babel of languages some stony expletive, harder 
than the other, to fling at the head of an antagonist. 
It is true that No. 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, is still 
an object of interest to the world ; but it is not as 
the Mecca of a prophet, but merely as the theatre 
of such human weakness and marital unhappiness as 
the world had seldom seen. A voice from the 
desert or the mountain would have been listened to 
by the present generation and echoed down along 
the corridors of Time. But who can say, that the 
Jeremiads and Woes of Chelsea are hearkened to by a 
people that to-day are more materialistic and sunken 
than when the voice from Craigenputtock first 
awakened them to a sense of their political and 
moral degradation? 

CI 

The most reserved, and therefore, the most re- 
vered of modern writers, was probably Nathaniel 
_- ^ Hawthorne. There is something 

Hawthorne. , .-,.,,., , ° 

very beautiful m his silent and up- 
ward struggles through poverty and adverse circum- 
stances to independence. No querulousness, no 



AUTUMN 91 



railing at fortune, nor at men, from whom, indeed, as 
seems to be always the case with such gentle and 
lofty spirits, he received but scant consideration ; 
but silent work, carried out always in obedience to 
that silent behest of genius to persevere through 
faith in one's own unacknowledged powers. And 
then, when triumph came, the meek enjoyment of 
the slender competence the world flings to such 
benefactors, and the same reticence and reserve that 
characterised his hidden and early struggles. Yes ! 
the contemplation of such silent and lofty spirits is 
invigorating in the enervation that will come from 
the loud noises of a blatant world. And his end 
was quite in harmony and beautiful unison with his 
life. Gently, without a murmur, or even a sigh, 
he sank into the dreamless sleep; and his friend, 
deceived by his placidity and motionless aspect, did 
not know and could not tell at what time sleep 
ended and death began. 

CII 

So ! it is Winter. The beautiful frost-foliage is 
on my windows in the morning, — flowers and 
leaves, wrought out in all manners 
of such exquisite curves and interlac- 
ings that no human art could possibly approach it. 
No finest pencil, or sharpest chisel, held in the 
hands of a Michael Angelo or a Phidias could 
trace on canvas or marble anything at all approach- 
ing the exquisite tracery, the multitudinous lines, 
the sweeps and segments of circles wrought in a 
few hours by the invisible spirit of the air on a little 
moisture on the glass. Alas ! that it is evanescent, 
like all beautiful things. I breathe softly on the 



92 PARERGA 



window-pane, and lo ! 't is gone. The secret artist 
withdraws his handiwork, and departs. It is a hint 
at perfection, a suggestion of the absolute, which 
Nature is forever giving us to remind us of " The 
Beauty, ever ancient, ever new," that hes beyond the 
visible, and shall be revealed when matter is no 
more, but only the Form, the Archetype, the Vision 
and the Spirit stand out against the background of 
eternity. 

cm 

Like Jean Paul's wandering spirit through the 
stars, the Infinitely Great, — when he sank down 
terrified at the awful revelations, and 
besought the Angel of the Lord to 
spare him any further revelations as too over- 
whelming for a human intellect, — I confess to a 
feeling of dread of examining too minutely God's 
second revelation, the Infinitely Little. It is again 
a succession of wonders, minute but significant; 
and these crowd upon the human mind that inves- 
tigates them with such amazing prodigality that 
there seems no release from their terrifying and 
seemingly interminable succession, but to lay down 
one's book, and cease to investigate further. On a 
long piece of mica, that founder of crystallography, 
the Abbe Haiiy says : 

"We have been able to detach from it a layer that reflected a 
beautiful clear blue, which is a sign of extreme tenuity. Having 
calculated the thickness of this layer, we found it equal to the 
forty-three millionth of a millimetre, which supposes that from 
a piece of mica one millimetre thick, we can slice off more than 
23,000 separated lamina." 

And of the crystalline drawings and pencillings 
on my window-pane Professor Tyndall could write: 



AUTUMN 



93 



'•Let us imagine for a moment that stones are gifted with a 
power of locomotion, that they attract and repel each other, and 
that by virtue of these attractions and repulsions they dispose them- 
selves in such order as to form houses and streets in the most per- 
fect symmetry, would we not be astounded at such phenomena ? 
Observe those stars of ice which form on your window-pane during 
winter : viewed by the microscope in their complete formation 
each of them has six rays ; one would say they were flowers with 
six petals, and each molecule takes up its place in this type rigor- 
ously hexagonal." 

Alas! that such a lover of "the fairy tales of 
Science" could not, like old Sir Thomas Browne, 
utter with faith, "O Altitudo!" 



iart EI 

WINTER 



WINTER 

Section I 

I 

One advantage of the wintry season is that it 
draws in and concentrates thought and interest on 
domestic and homely things. Sum- 
mer is the period of externation. Our of'w^nten'"'"^ 
ideas with ourselves expand and travel 
abroad. Everything seems to open up, — the heav- 
ens, light, the length of day, the sun, the trees, the 
flowers, the very insects. These latter form a world 
in themselves ; and we wonder where they lay hid- 
den and perdus during the long Winter; and how did 
they, frail things, protect themselves against bitter 
and biting frosts, which killed birds and plants and 
flowers without remorse. Yet here they come 
forth, — some as garden beauties, some as garden 
pests; some extremely beautiful, some extremely 
ugly; that is, if there be such a thing as ugliness 
at all in anything which Omnipotent and Eternal 
Beauty has constructed. But now Nature goes 
into retreat. The days narrow to a slit of twi- 
light; the skies draw down and weigh upon the 
atmosphere, which chokes and blinds us; all living 
things seem to have vanished, as if by magic, from 
the flower-beds and shrubs and walks of my garden. 
And we, too, become narrowed and contracted from 
all external interests and occupations ; and we notice 
and watch and philosophise about things which a 
few weeks ago seemed to us of little or merely pass- 

7 



PARERGA 



ing interest. Perhaps it is but the physical theory 
appHed to thought, that heat has an expansive influ- 
ence and that cold contracts. 



II 

Lu and Ju are kittens, about three or four 

months old. They differ much in appearance, but 

very little in their habits. Lu is 

Z.U and Ju. .•_ r t t j ^u 

quite angelic, ir I may dare use the 
expression. Her white, soft, downy breast, her meek 
eyes, her little pink nose and tongue, speak nothing 
but gentleness and playfulness. Ju is more robust, 
and her grey fur, roughened sometimes in play or 
anger, and her eager eyes, give one the idea of closer 
relationship with the striped terror of Indian and 
Bengal jungles. They seem to enjoy life, climbing 
up lace curtains to their serious detriment, scratch- 
ing the damask of chairs and sofas, tearing out by 
clawfuls the fur of the hearth-rug, chasing each 
other under tables and chairs, rolling over on the 
carpet, and clawing at each other in sportive play- 
fulness. They are rather exclusive, too. Charlie, 
my white English terrier, a very lively and jocund 
individual, has made several advances and been 
rudely repulsed. He has stood on his hind legs 
and gracefully pawed the air, rolled over on his 
back, and performed other gymnastics, evidently 
with the intention of being allowed to share the 
amusements of the kittens. But no ! He has been 
ignominiously repelled. To all his blandishments 
there is but one response, — a hiss, a spit, and a 
quick, fierce dash of a paw that might seriously 
injure his optics. In this peremptory refusal of all 



WINTER 



99 



advances, Lu is as fierce as Ju, and Ju Is as fierce 
as Lu. Otherwise, and in all the other details of 
life, the kittens manifest a spirit of fraternity that 
would suit the dreams of a Communard. 

Ill 

But a few days ago, in an unhappy moment for 
her own ultimate felicity, Lu killed a mouse. It 
was her first, and she was very proud 
of the achievement. But she was ^rprocaime 
not going to keep it in a museum. She wanted to 
eat it. Unfortunately Ju wanted the same. Lu 
strenuously and emphatically refused, claiming the 
prey for her lawful prize. She had seized it and 
killed it. Therefore, by all law, human and feline, 
it was hers, and no one had a right to interfere. 
But Ju had an idea also, borrowed from certain 
moralists, that she had a right at least to deprive 
Lu of possession if she could do so by violence, 
fraud, feint, or sleight of hand, diplomacy, or other 
method. Hence war has been formally proclaimed 
and is now raging. The fraternity born in the 
common cradle is broken up; the sports of child- 
hood are set aside for the sterner work of warfare ; 
the angelic Lu hides her prey like a burglar, and 
burrows in dark corners, growling over it, little 
beast as she is ; and Ju watches from secret places 
like any assassin, pounces on the incautious Lu, 
rolls her over, and tries to murder her ; whilst, all 
day long, the noise of battle — growls and screams, 
and hurried scampering to and fro, and rude en- 
counters — have taken the place of those gentle 
amenities that hitherto had marked the unruffled 
progress of happy kitten-life. 



100 PARERGA 



IV 

One smiles pityingly, and rather contemptuously, 
on these pranks of the lower creation, until it is 

suddenly asked. Wherein does the 
Hum?nfty" higher humanity differ ? Put human 

beings for Lu and Ju ; put a piece of 
paper, a coin, a bit of polished charcoal, a square 
of earth, a riband, in place of the mouse, — and is 
not the fraternal spirit, too, rapidly changed into the 
fratricidal ? How men's faces harden and grow 
thin ; how the light dies from their eyes, and the 
fierce animal-cunning look takes its place ; how sud- 
denly the gentle purrings and cooings and dainty 
little amenities of life are set aside, and the hard, 
metallic judicial or military note is assumed; and 
how each creature seeks to hide his treasure and 
bury it in a bank, and lock up his securities so that 
no human eye may see them, for he knows that cov- 
etousness and rapacity are everywhere, and that he 
must conceal his treasures or fight for them ! And 
statesmen governing mighty empires, — how they, 
too, have to watch, and prevaricate, and lie boldly, 
and bury deeply, and speculate wildly, and steal 
unblushingly, to safeguard their little possessions ! 
Put bayonets for claws, the thunder of cannon and 
the rattle of musketry for the angry growl, and a 
piece of barren island for a mouse, and you have 
brought down the statesman, whose word rules 
hemispheres, to the level of Lu and Ju. 



WINTER loi 



Charlie has heroically offered his services as ally, 
or peacemaker between the hostile forces. He pre- 
tends, canine diplomat as he is, to be 
quite indifferent about the spolia opima^ " ^' 

around which the battle is raging. He affects the 
lordly indifference of a superior being, of one who 
has copious treasures of his own, and a plethora of 
good things in general, in order that his services, 
given generously and gratuitously, without hope of 
favour or reward, may be accepted. Charlie, who 
cannot see the flutter of a wing in the garden, or 
the faintest sign of animal life without being seized 
with the fierce fury of a murderer, now assumes the 
role of peacemaker. A mouse, — a mere mouse, 
already half consumed and badly mangled, — he 
turns away in sorrowing contempt for such a thing. 
Has he not his own prey and booty in the stable? 
Did he not kill that young, brown rat, that was 
making such criminal raids upon the oat-bin yester- 
day ; and has he not as many trophies as yonder 
bloated spider with all his gallows-victims around 
him ? Oh, no ! Charlie, in offering his services 
as ally or intermediary, is above suspicion. Be- 
sides, there is canine honour to be maintained. 
And honour above all things ! O canis improbe I 
O caeca hominum pectora ! And oh, Charlie ! that 
much-abused motto, Noblesse oblige I 

VI 

Ju has conquered ! She caught Lu In an Incau- 
tious moment, when she was sadly » ,, ^. , 

J / ^ ,, - •' A Machiavel. 

unprepared (too full a sense or se- 
curity, I expect, or too much reliance on that astute 



PARERGA 



statesman, Charlie, who had completely succumbed 
to her charms), rolled her over again and again, 
snatched the fragmentary prize and incontinently 
ate it. Lu is just now caterwauling and making 
ineffectual appeals for sympathy around the house. 
Ju is on my hearth-rug, either in a state of apo- 
plectic coma from too much mouse-meat, or in a 
state of sad depression from the consummation of 
her crime. Remorse is snapping at the heels of 
ill deeds. Charlie is sitting beyond her, looking at 
the fire in a sad manner. He is overwhelmed by 
the consciousness of feline depravity. There is a 
melancholy pity on his fine features as he looks 
sometimes on the penitent criminal beneath him, 
and then at the fire. Once or twice he caught my 
eye, as I watched them both ; and he looked at 
me as if there were some link of a common supe- 
riority and general immunity from universal de- 
pravity between us. It was flattering, but then I 
thought I saw the fellow winking with his off-eye 
at the fire. I cannot make him out. He is a 
Machiavelli in furs ; a Talleyrand without an em- 
peror to practice his wiles upon. 1 am getting 
rather suspicious of Charlie. He fawns on me, 
thrusts his nose into my hand, professes eternal fidel- 
ity and affection. But yesterday, when I pushed 
away a bone with my foot, he nearly bit me. And 
this affectation of virtue ! I don't Uke it. 

vn 

Yes ! I see it is remorse that is agitating Ju, — 
not the dyspeptic melancholy of too much mouse- 
_ meat. She goes about sadly, clings 

Remorse. , , ,° , , -^ * °j 

to the hearth-rug when she can, and 
refuses to play even with her ally, Charlie. To-day 



WINTER 103 



she looked so miserable, so utterly broken-hearted, 
that I commiserated her, and not wishing to hurt 
her feelings by making a direct application of the 
subject to her case, I read aloud the following pas- 
sage from a brilliant lecture by his Grace the Duke 
of Argyll, K. C, delivered before the students who 
had assembled in the London Mansion, as one of 
a course of university extension addresses. Charlie 
stood up to leave, but I bade him remain. I think 
he suspected that I was going to be personal in my 
remarks. Nothing was further from my mind. I 
hate personalities. I think there is nothing more 
unpleasant in life than personal remarks, if I except 
personal explanations. I have a few acquaintances 
who are always explaining. I hate to hear their 
knock, and to be informed that they would like to 
see me on business. I feel like the Eton boy who 
is told, " the Master wishes to see you in his room." 
I always know what 's coming : 

"A fine day!" 

"Yes!" 

" Very cold, however ! " 

"Yes, very cold. I think the glass is running 
down." A pause. 

"You won't mind my speaking to you about a 
little matter — " Oh, dear! 

But Ju and Charlie are waiting. 

VIII 

Thus saith his Grace, the Duke of Argyll: 
"There is one other universal fact connected 

with past history to which, for a few 

minutes, I wish to attract your atten- spee^h!'^^"^'^ 

tion, and it is this : that man, ever 

since we have had any record of him, has been a 



104 PARERGA 



fighting animal." {A gentle murmur of applause from 
Charlie ; Ju wakes up.) " Let not my fair friends 
whom I have the honour to address, think I am 
bringing before them something which belongs to a 
coarse philosophy." {Charlie nudges Juy who looks 
slightly offended.) "Let us look facts in the face. 
In all science we have to deal with facts, and we 
ought not to put them aside for the sake of fancy 
or sentiment. It is unquestionably true that war 
and conquest have been universal facts in the history 
of the world. I believe I am correct in saying that 
there is not a single nation of any power now exist- 
ing in the world, that has not been founded on war 
or conquest." {^^ Bow-wow ,' from Charlie, which is 
the canine equivalent of Hear I Hear ! 'The Chair de- 
mands silence.) " So it has been all over the world, 
and it is so at the present moment. We are even 
now perpetually seizing and occupying countries 
which have a native population, and whom we do 
not actually conquer only because they are too weak 
to fight. The world in this respect has not changed, 
ladies and gentlemen, — not one whit. I know 
nothing more curious in recent history than the fact 
that, in the great war between Germany and France 
when France was defeated, Germany seized a little 
bit of her territory, — Alsace; and she was severely 
blamed for doing so." {Scornful laughter from Ju and 
Charlie.) "I said to all my friends at that time, 
' Do you think the world has so completely changed; 
that great wars and great conquests are to go on, and 
that the conquering nation is never to take what all 
other nations have hitherto taken, portions of terri- 
tory for their own possession ? ' There was no 
answer to that." {Bow I wow I wow I from Charlie.) 



WINTER 105 



IX 

Ju stretched herself and yawned deeply. The crisis 
had passed. There will be no felo de se this time. 
Her conscience is at rest. She has 
withdrawn formally the Nimmer und 
Nimmermehr about which her mind was sadly revolv- 
ing. Here, in the higher human species, and in the 
very apogee of its progress towards perfection, are 
both precept and examples — the credentials for 
future infinite mouse-eating and feline rapacities. 
Might is right ! All human moralities point that 
way ; and we, of the lower levels, wild or domesti- 
cated, must not dare presume to pitch our moral 
conduct on a higher plane than that of our great 
superiors. I don't know what Lu will think of his 
Grace the Duke of Argyll ; but she, too, has now 
carte blanche to take and keep whatever lies in her 
power. It is primitive morality, but simple. And 
oh ! how it does solve all the metaphysical questions 
about free will, and the rights of States to punish ; 
and capital punishment, and death penalties, and 
reformation of criminals. Surely, if it had no other 
merit, this alone, that it stopped forever the wran- 
glings of philosophers, would justify it. Dante 
has written a Divina Commedia; Alfred Austin a 
Human Tragedy; Balzac a Comedie Humaine ; alas! 
there is no room for more. 

X 

My poor boy-patient died this morning. His face 
had become fearfully deformed in the 
progress of the dread disease, epitheli- |fj|"" ^^^ 
oma. Even the profile, hitherto un- 
touched, began at last to be affected, like the other ; 



io6 PARERGA 



the right eye bulged forth ; the malady grew down 
and into the throat, until at last he could swallow 
no food, and became emaciated like a tuberculous 
patient. And just as he died I took up the morn- 
ing paper and read that an indubitable cure for 
cancer had been discovered in France ; and that 
Pasteur's assistant in Paris had accepted it, and was 
already working wonderful cures on his patients. 
One is slightly incredulous about such reports, until 
they are put beyond doubt by repeated and genuine 
experiment. Yet we are at liberty to admire this 
unquenchable desire of Science to grapple with its 
great antagonist, Death, although victory must 
remain always with the latter. It is the dread 
picture of Laocoon and the serpents that is pre- 
sented to our imagination when we see the priests 
of Science grappling with the inevitable and the all- 
conquering. There really is nothing for humanity 
but to accept its fate. 

" Out, out, brief candle ! 
Life *s but a walking shadow. A poor player 
That frets and struts his hour upon the stage. 
And then is heard no more ! " 



XI 

It was a dreary, clammy, wet, and dismal day, as 
we bore his poor remains across the stretch of country 

to a mountain hollow, where the 
Afdca^^VeWt. churchyard nestled under great trees, 

as if the earth alone were not able to 
hide its beloved dead. Great sheets of grey rain 
swept across the landscape, hid the mountains, filled 
the valleys, clothed the naked branches with pearls, 
and replenished the dry channels, where all the 
Autumn the brown and red and green sandstone 



WINTER 107 



pebbles and boulders lay naked to the sight. We 
took him up through deep cuttings in the hills, 
down through pleasant valleys, until at last we de- 
posited the sacred burden in earth consecrated 
in the memories and devotions of the faithful for 
over a thousand years. It was a lonely place, and 
we the mourners were few. One or two people 
from the straggling hill-village looked out, and 
seeing something that broke the grey monotony of 
their lives, sauntered down after us to the graveyard, 
and raised their hats as the last prayers were repeated. 
Then all departed, and he was alone. " Well," said 
some one, penetrated with a sense of the loneliness 
and desolation of the place, and the sad surcease of 
a life that was just breaking out into such promise 
of great things, " it is better to rest here than in a 
stony grave out on an African veldt." 

XII 

How strange is that cry of Rest! Rest! Rest! 
the prayer and the hope of humanity. Young and 
old alike look forward to it ; the for- „ , „ ^* 
mer, as the concomitant or age and 
the reward of life's labour ; the latter, in death, the 
final sleep and stillness for mind and body. We 
place the magic initials on our obituary notices of 
our departed ones ; we write the full words, Re- 
quiescat in pace^ as the final farewell when the grave 
hides them from our sight. Customs differ in 
different countries ; but I must say I was inexpres- 
sibly touched on noticing in the German and Swiss 
cemeteries, particularly over the graves of little chil- 
dren, the little poetic prayers : 

'' Ruhe Sanftr' 



io8 PARERGA 



and beneath, as the last word of immortal hope 
blending with the final benediction : 

** Auf Wiedersehen ! ' ' 

Goethe, the scientific Pagan, omits the latter word 
of Christian hope in the famous lines he wrote in 
the grotto or summer house at Weimar : 

" Ueber alien Gipfeln 
1st Ruh ; 
In alien Wipfeln 
Spiirest du 
Kaum einen Hauch ; 
Die Vogelein schweigen im Walde ; 
Warte nur, balde 
Ruhest du auch." ^ 



XIII 

A huge bunch of chrysanthemums — white as 

curds, bronze as dying fireflames, scarlet, yellow, 
pink — was on my writing-desk when 

Fiowers.^^ °^ I returned ; and strange to say, al- 
most the first lines my eyes fell upon 

when after dinner I turned up the flame of my lamp 

and began to read were these : 

" Flowers have souls, as well as animals, all spreading and 
expanding and germinating upwards even to the soul of 



■ Over every mountain-height 

Slumber broods ; 
Scarcely a zephyr light 
Stirs in the woods 
One leafy crest. 
The song-bird sleeps on the bough 
Wait a little, and thou. 
Thou, too, shalt rest." 



WINTER 109 



And these words were spoken by the strangest 
lips and in the strangest place ; yea, even by the lips 
of Napoleon the heartless, and on the rock of St. 
Helena. Think of the lips of bronze that thun- 
dered over Europe for twenty years, and condemned 
at least two millions of his race to death, uttering 
such a piece of poetry ; and in his barren cage where 
sultry siroccos and the sharp teeth of ocean hurri- 
canes had worn away vegetation even to the stony 
surface, except where in valleys and hidden places a 
willow might grow, and water spring, and grasses 
wave, as in that lonely spot where, after six years of 
mental and physical torture, the little frame of granite 
and iron was laid to rest. 



XIV 

How much more appropriately sounds a similar 
conception from the mind of the poet, who extorted 
the admiration of the bowelless con- ^ ^^ , „.^^, 

r 11 1 rr cc iz -i-^ ^ Holy Riddle. 

queror after the battle or J ena. " yoiLa 

un hommel " And how sweetly come the words in 

the native German : 

"Alle Gestaken sind ahnlich, und keine gleichet der andern ; 
Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz, 
Auf ein heiliges Rathsel." ^ 

A holy riddle I So it is. And it may be expressed 
thus : "What is it in Nature that not only develops 
the instinct, the passion, for new creations, but makes 
that instinct also develop itself in forms of varied 
and entrancing beauty ? " And whence her tremen- 

^ ** All the forms are resembling, and no one is like to another; 
And thus does the chorus point to a mysterious law, 
A holy riddle:' 



no PARERGA 



dous prolific sources whence proceed not only new 
creations, but such an infinite variety of beautiful 
forms that one is bewildered by such munificence, 
such prodigality, such infinite resources for produc- 
ing form and colour and detail, absolutely perfect 
and flawless ? Look at these chrysanthemums on 
my table ! I am bewildered with their beauty. 



XV 

I doubt if the fertile imagination of any poet ever 
invented such a pretty little story as that which a 
certain naturalist tells us of a mimosa 
and a Uttle child somewhere in South 
America. This beautiful plant had become so ac- 
customed to be approached and touched by the 
young daughter of the house that it never shrank 
from her, but like a sentient thing, like a bird or a 
favourite dog, allowed itself to be fondled and fed 
by the gentle fingers of the child. A gentleman 
visitor, also a botanist, whilst thoroughly recognising 
the sensibility of these wonderful creations, was yet 
incredulous about its dumb perception of the child's 
affection. The matter was put to the test. The 
gentleman was challenged to approach the plant with 
all caution. He did so. But when he came within 
a yard of the mimosa, it shyly drew in its petals and 
closed them fast, just as an oyster snaps at the touch, 
or the garden-snail withdraws its feelers and horns. 
After an interval it opened up again, and stretched 
out its petals. Then the child was bade approach. 
Not only did the plant remain quite open, but it 
allowed the gentle fingers to smooth and rub the 
petals and twist them hither and thither without the 
least sign of shrinking or of fear. 



WINTER III 



XVI 

Yet, whilst that feeling remains uppermost in my 
mind that these pretty things have at least sensibility, 
^ .„ . ^ it brings with it a hideous reflection. 

Guillotined. '-ni, n ^ li i 

These flowers on my table are soul- 
less ; for these most beautiful fronds and leaves are 
the decapitated heads of winter beauties which the 
scissors would not spare. Already I can perceive 
the process of decay. They have been ruthlessly 
guillotined, and must perish. And as I watch them 
by my lamplight, and wonder at their beautiful 
petals and corolla, a sudden resemblance flashes up. 
I see a fair, sweet face, crowned with a corona of 
white powdered hair, carried on the top of a pike 
through the streets of Paris. It is the head of the 
youthful Princesse de Lamballe, who has been torn 
from the side of the unhappy Queen, ruthlessly mur- 
dered, insulted in death in an unspeakable manner, 
finally cut into small pieces, which were scattered over 
the pavements of Paris. One, more brutal than the 
others, has brought her head on his lance, and pa- 
raded it beneath the windows of the Duke of Orleans. 
Philippe Egalite rises from his dinner-table and 
smiles at the ghastly trophy. It was then borne to 
the Temple, and paraded beneath the windows of 
Louis XVI. A commissioner calls him to the win- 
dow to see it. Another tries to prevent him. The 
cut flower is carried away to be trampled beneath 
the feet of demons. 



112 PARERGA 



XVII 

Last night we had a most glorious meteoric 
shower. I heard the children " making wishes " 

outside my windows, and concluded 
Sh^\n°"'^ from their exclamations that the 

mighty and mysterious heavens were 
producing once again, and at their stated times, a 
magnificent spectacular display. So it was. Swiftly 
and beautifully as arrows shot from an invisible bow 
by the hands of some mighty Archer, the tenuous 
lines were flung forth, and after trailing a path of 
light across the heavens, sank soundless into the 
womb of Infinity. At one time they seemed to 
cross each other in irregular lines like summer light- 
ning; and apparently they were performing a zig- 
zag dance in the heavens. But I had seen something 
about their being focussed in origin from some cen- 
tral point; and it was then quite easy to perceive 
that, swift and sudden as was their flight, the vast 
projectiles did issue from the centre of the constel- 
lation Andromeda. Each meteoric flash lit up not 
only the heavens, but the earth, with a pale blue 
light; and the whole efi^ect was pretty, but not sub- 
lime. The one feature in the great display that was 
sublime was the sudden swallowing up of such vast, 
ignited, metallic masses in the awful deserts of the 
universe. 

XVIII 

Suddenly all kinds of star-lines in star-poetry 
shot through my mind, but their 

A Great Line. i 

presence there was as evanescent as 
the meteors themselves. All but one line of 



WINTER 113 



transcendent beauty from the " Midsummer Night's 
Dream " : 

" And certain stars shot madly from their spheres 
To hear the sea-maid^ s music. ^'' 

That line hung crystalline and liquid in the night 
of memory as the planet Jupiter that looked down 
upon these foolish meteors as if nailed to the Infi- 
nite; and, as I watched the tenuous flashes, and 
thought over the beauties of that line, — the allit- 
eration so delicate and unpronounced, the short 
syllables that marked the swift flight of the stars, 
and the broad, smooth vowels of " sea-maid's 
music," I thought for the thousandth time that 
there is but one great enigma in literature, and 
that is Shakspeare. 

XIX 

For how can the imagination compass the fact 
that the same hand which wrote that line, and 
others, such as. 

Contrasts. 

*'or Heaven's cherubin, horsed 
Upon the sightless couriers of the air ; " 

or these : 

" spirits are not finely touched 
But to fine issues ; nor nature never lends 
The smallest sample of her excellence 
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
Herself the glory of a creditor, — 
Both thanks and use," 

did also actually write the riverside tavern obscen- 
ities that deface so much of his verse that one 
must walk with a lantern, as on the pavement of 

8 



PARERGA 



an Oriental city by night, lest the foot should 
stumble into unnameable horrors? It is altogether 
inconceivable, impossible, except on one theory, that 
the man, Shakspeare, stands, like ancient Homer, 
for a multitude of singers, some sweet, some hoarse, 
some vile, some sublime ; that he was a practical 
eclectic, using his powers of adaptation and selection 
with marvellous dexterity, here and there adjusting 
to some great historic scene some mighty speech 
or philosophic monologue, caught from the lips of 
Verulam or Pembroke, and again descending to the 
tavern to seize for comedy the wit and repartee of 
minds teeming with all kinds of salacious abomi- 
nations. " Airs from heaven " and " blasts from 
hell " were never seen in such combination in any 
other poet. 

XX 

It is not a little singular, but it is very signifi- 
cant, that Shakspeare has not said one kind word 
about the sea. He seems to be 

Se^Sea*^"^*^ ^"'^ P^^^^^^^^^^Y uneconomic of the word 
" ruffian," when he speaks of winds 
or surges. 

"And in the visitation of the winds. 
Who take the ruffian billows by the top. 
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them 
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds. " 

And in "Othello": 

" Methinks the wind has spoke aloud at land ; 
A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements ; 
If it hath ruffianed so upon the sea. 
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt upon them. 
Can hold the mortise ? " 



WINTER 



15 



And in several places we meet such expressions as : 

** The rough seas that spare not any man." 

"The deep-mouthed sea." 

" In cradle of the rude, imperious surge." 

The deep love, and the mysterious longings, and 
the suggestions of eternity and infinity, and the 
contrast between its intransience and this fleeting 
life, and all the tender sounds and aspects of the 
sea seem to have been completely unknown to 
him. 

XXI 

But this feature is common to all poets with 
Shakspeare, prior to the nineteenth century. The 
Bible always speaks with a certain 
dread of the sea — of its monsters, the^sea!^°^ 
its leviathans, its strength, its fury. 
The Homeric epithets " loud-resounding," " wine- 
coloured," suggest an alien and perilous element. 
One expression in Dante, very tender and very 
sweet, seems to come closer to modern sentiment 
than anything to be found in his predecessors or 
contemporaries. It is the well-known line in the 
Purgatorio : ^ 

** L'alba vinceva I'ora mattutina 

Che fuggia innanzi, si che di lontano 
Conobbi il tremolar della marina.^' 

There is some pride in the sea, as England's ex- 
clusive domain, in the eighteenth-century English 
poets. But there is no hint as yet of that deep, 

^ Canto I., 115-118. 



ii6 PARERGA 



almost uninterpreted love of the sea, which seems 
to have held captive every poet that sang in the 
nineteenth century, from Shelley to Swinburne. I 
say " uninterpreted, " because it is quite clear that 
their expressions are not consciously adequate to 
interpret their feelings. The passion, the rapture, 
with which such poets watched the ever-varying 
face of the deep has not found its rightful expres- 
sion in their works. There is something always 
lacking amidst the exuberant enthusiasm of their 
love. No poet has yet embodied his dream of 
the sea. But the sea and the child have been the 
invention, or revelation, of the nineteenth century. 



XXII 

This is quite intelligible. Although it seems 

paradoxical, the very infinitude of the sea, with its 

vast and beautiful suggestions, was 

A Modern ^u c U' u • lu 

Passion. the feature, which m the past, con- 

stituted its terror. For then, it was 
an unknown and awful element, pathless like a 
desert, and with all the minatory and frightful as- 
pects which are associated with the idea of vastness 
and loneliness and danger. It was illimitable ; and 
the illimitable always makes the heart of man to 
sicken and grow sad. But in our time, whilst its 
greatness and seeming infinity suggest eternity, and 
afford a background for all sublime and spiritual 
imaginings, the conquest of its terrors by frail, pitiful 
man has robbed it of that threatening and melan- 
choly aspect which it seems to have presented to 
our forefathers. It is no longer, even in its most 
hostile moods, our dread, omnipotent master. The 
giant has been chained and wheeled into our service. 



WINTER 



117 



and our children play with him. But his greatness 
and vastness, his loneliness and majesty, his varied 
moods of tempest and tranquil peace appeal to our 
imagination, and give birth to that vast outburst of 
sea-music, which forms the most conspicuous and 
most delightful element in the majestic literature of 
the nineteenth century. 

XXIII 

One supreme advantage of the winter months is 
that it takes you from the companionship of men, 
and throws you into the companion- ,. ^ t, , 

, . r 1 1 r) 1 ^^" ^"^ Books. 

ship or books. Books are greater 
than men, because they reveal man at his highest. 
The author of " Hamlet" and "Lear" is infinitely 
superior to the "immortal link-boy," or the cautious 
speculator of Stratford, or the gay companion, who 
gave up his life in a drunken bout. The divine 
poet who wrote that poets' poem, " The Faerie 
Queene " is not to be brought down to the mean 
level of the ruthless exterminator, the mercenary 
scribe and secretary of Lord Deputies and County 
Lieutenants. You cannot recognise the author of 
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in the voluptuary of 
Venice ; and you can never understand how the 
same pen that wrote " Endymion " and five im- 
mortal odes could have indited those pitiable letters 
to Fanny Brawne. The only two poets, who seemed 
to live up to their high calling, and keep the lofty 
serenity in daily life that breathes through their im- 
mortal verses, are Dante and Shelley. I think I 
would rather look at the glorious Florentine, and 
speak with him, than read the Divina Commedia or 
the Convito. And I am sure I would rather see 



ii8 PARERGA 



Shelley than hang over the pages of Alastor or 
Adonais. These men lived poetry, not merely 
wrote it. And I am sure neither their actions, 
nor their ideas, nor their principles, nor their con- 
verse could ever savour of the commonplace. 

XXIV 

But as we cannot "call spirits from the vasty deep," 

and as we have here the immortal part of them, let 

us be thankful ; and closing down 

A Student's ^i • ^ ^ • j ^- • 

Library. the wmter curtams, and stirrmg up 

the winter fire, let us have a sympo- 
sium of the Gods. And as the details of a student's 
library are as interesting as the details of a quarrel or 
a divorce; and as details, circumstances, surround- 
ings, are the very things most readers want to see 
and stamp on their imaginations, let me mention 
briefly one or two that are trivial and yet of uni- 
versal interest. And first let me mention that I 
read and write by lamplight — a good old-fashioned, 
brass-pillared, opal-shaded lamp, that throws a mel- 
low light on these pages, and contributes not a little 
to raise the temperature of my study to the 62° 
prescribed by medical science as a comfortable heat. 
I mention that trivial fact, not only as indicative of 
a constitutional aversion to novelties, and a close 
clinging to ancient prejudices — " old wine, old 
books, old friends " — but also because this reaction- 
ary symptom in my character does not appear to 
recommend itself to my friends. 

" Psha," they say, " get the electric light, man, or 
use acetylene gas, or at least incandescent burners. 
That old paraffin lamp is as antiquated as a quill 
pen or a horn spoon." 

I rather like these remonstrances — for their ab- 



WINTER 



119 



surdity. Nothing gives me such pleasure, unlawful 
as it is, as to see pretentious people make fools of 
themselves. When I see a self-opinionated man 
tumble into some betise^ it gives occasion for silent 
and undemonstrative laughter for weeks. 

XXV 

Uncharitable ! Yes, so it is. But irresistible. It 
cannot be helped. When the Commissioners of 
National Education send me a per- 
emptory order to construct at once °""^^ ^" 
lavatories in my mountain schools for the use of 
bare-legged boys and girls, I cannot help smiling 
all over when I recollect that it would be just as 
easy for me to build the aqueducts of Solomon on 
that mighty ruin that spans the lonely spaces of the 
Roman Campagna. And so, when my friends, 
advanced thinkers from the centres of civilisation, 
and brought into daily touch with the genii of gas 
and electricity, advise me to summon those good 
genii to this remote country village, I feel like ask- 
ing them whether they have Aladdin's lamp in their 
coat pockets, or whether they hold the magic ring 
that would command all powers in earth or sea or 
sky. Then, when they depart, I turn up the lamp 
and wonder at the delightful imbecility of mankind. 
For it is surely one of the saddest symptoms of our 
age that, in our race after progress, we never con- 
sider the obstacles that may lie in our path, — tem- 
peramental, material, or otherwise, — and so run 
our faces against difficulties that we refuse to fore- 
see, to the infinite detriment of our own persons, 
and, too often, the fatal obstruction of our plans 
and the fatal disappointment of our hopes. 



120 PARERGA 



XXVI 

On another detail I differ from my friends. I 
like, dearly like, well-bound books. I loathe, ut- 
terly loathe, shabby, ragged, or soiled 
volumes. I do not know a more un- 
pleasant feeling than to take up a greasy, well- 
handled book. I have no pleasure in reading it, 
no matter how attractive and beautiful the contents. 
And if I allow my imagination to run riot over the 
past experiences of that volume, I generally end by 
placing it on the coals, or sending it as a present to 
some book-loving friend. How many fingers have 
touched that grimy cover ! Sweat and dirt are well 
marked there. Perhaps it lay once or twice on the 
bed of sickness, and was fondled by some fingers, 
frail and white, which were shedding the scales of 
some disease. With all compassion and tenderness 
for such a sufferer, one cannot help feeling a little 
shudder of pain and loathing — no, that is too 
strong a word, which I keep in reserve for moral 
diseases, but, let us say, of shrinking — at the idea 
that these pages were fondled by such a hand, and 
may yet be reeking with the terrible but invisible 
remnants of the routed and conquered disease. Or 
perhaps this book was a long time in the possession 
of some bookworm, or lonely scholar, who had the 
lofty contempt of such spirits for mere physical 
cleanliness ! It is a curious association of ideas, 
but we do insensibly connect the idea of great libra- 
ries and much learning with carelessness and infinite 
dust. 



WINTER 



xxvir 

Hence I never open a parcel of books without a 
certain feeling of trepidation lest I should shrink 
back in disappointment at their first 

^ A ^ 1 r u 1 New Parcels. 

appearance. Catalogues or books are 
like diplomatic statesmen. They do not exactly lie, 
but they equivocate. There is a good deal of men- 
tal reservation in book catalogues. You may read, 
for example, of a certain book which you would 
like dearly to possess, and this edition in four oc- 
tavo volumes will just suit your library, and it is 
bound in cloth gilt. Here is a prize ! You order 
it incontinently. The parcel duly appears. For 
three or four days you watched the post with impa- 
tience. You wondered what had happened. You 
thought you would like to dismiss the Postmaster- 
General and his entire staff of subordinates for such 
culpable delays. You said this kind of thing was 
only fit for Central Africa, but was intolerable in 
such advanced civilisation as ours. At last the 
volumes appear. Your anger against officialdom 
has died away. With trembHng hand you cut the 
string, unloose the thick paper wrapper, and your 
heart sinks into your boots ! The covers are 
clammy ; the edges bent in and torn ; the tops 
are broken; the gilding has been rubbed away in 
all kinds of unimaginable friction. You turn over 
the pages with a certain feeling of disgust, when, lo ! 
at the end of the last volume you read, " End of 
Volume IV. " ; and, on seeking further, you find 
that you have secured but four volumes out of eight 
that complete the work 1 



122 PARERGA 



XXVIII 

Or you may read of books beautifully Illustrated ; 

and you would dearly like to see your favourite poet 

represented to your eye, as already 

Illustrations. ^ ^ . . \. v j c 

to your imagination. You dream or 
fairy pictures, — cloud-castles, aerial spendours, vast 
and novel presentments of sea and shore and sky, 
sylphs and fays and Ariels, sculptured ideals and 
canvased perfections ; and, lo ! here are a few 
wretched drawings, raw, uncouth, hideous, — cheap 
photographic reproductions, or twisted monsters, 
presented to you with the assurance that this is Art. 
Just lately, I saw a fine edition of a great poet dis- 
figured by such line drawings. The paper was 
good, the type excellent ; but every page was ruined 
by hideous figures, supposed to be classical, and 
which resembled, more than anything else, the chalk 
drawings on a blackboard executed by some truant 
schoolboys in the intervals of school hours. If one 
could erase them, it would be all right. You had 
your text and paper and binding. But no ! By 
some criminal cleverness, these drawings were inter- 
calated with the text, and the one could not be 
erased without destroying the other. 



XXIX 

But there is a genuine pleasure — shall I call it 

rapture — in the very appearance of a beautiful, clean 

book ; and no speculator in stocks 

in ings. beholds a rise in market prices with 

half the delight that fills the soul of the student when 

he sees a favourite book of a favourite author nobly 



WINTER 123 



and worthily presented. It is not a purely intel- 
lectual delight. It is even a physical pleasure. A 
book bound in polished calf, with red or blue labels, 
and embellished with profuse gilt lettering, is a "thing 
of beauty in itself." I have a small octavo volume 
of the Souvenirs of Maurice du Guerin, bound in 
purple calf and beautifully lettered. It is a never- 
ceasing pleasure to me to take up that volume and 
feel the smooth perfection of the binding, and turn 
over these creamy leaves with the clear type and 
wide margins, that belong to the aristocracy of books, 
and place it in certain lights as you would place a 
costly picture, that its beauties might show in con- 
trast and be exhibited under different aspects. And 
I keep it in good company, — amongst respectable, 
well-dressed citizen-books, even though some of 
them will only rank amongst the bourgeoisie of 
literature. 

XXX 

Well, here we are ! ci siamo, e ci resteremo, during 
the gloomy days and the delicious long evenings of 
Winter. We shut out politics and „. . 

, , , r Ci siamo. 

controversies, and all those petty 
things that seem to engross the ever-fretful mind 
of man. Events have made us mere spectators in 
the eternal drama, which is either a mere puppet- 
show or a colossal tragedy, according to the manner 
in which you regard it. We will blot out the pres- 
ent, and become the tranquil contemporaries of a 
past that is so mournfully still and silent now, 
although the crash of conflicts and the tumult of 
factions sound like an echo from its chronicles ; and 
of a future, that throws back no echo, for all is 
enfolded in prophetic silences and inarticulate con- 



124 PARERGA 



jectures, which will only speak when the ribbon of 
eternity draws out and touches the raw nerves of a 
supersensitive world. How tremendous, even in 
their ever-varying metaphor, are the words that Car- 
lyle was ever mumbling in his old age, when he 
was already a forgotten voice : 

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
To the last syllable of recorded time ; 
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle ! 
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player. 
That frets and struts his hour upon the stage 
And then is seen no more. It is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. 
Signifying nothing." 



WINTER 



125 



Section II 

XXXI 

I notice that the Celtic temperament is curiously 
hostile to Shakspeare. He never has got a footing 
in France. Voltaire called him a bar- 
barian ; and in a furtive, half-respect- le^ma^ny.'^ ^"'^ 
ful manner, the French critics seem 
to have taken his words as a tradition of their race. 
He violated the unities. This was his first great 
crime in their eyes. But this might have been con- 
doned, but for those historical plays which have ever 
glorified England at the expense of France. For 
national prejudices will intrude themselves even into 
the halcyon region of literature ; and many more 
criticisms are founded on race prejudices than on 
the canons of taste that have been recognised by the 
literary faculty in every age. Shakspeare found his 
resurrection in Germany. Lessing first, then Her- 
der, then Schiller, saw, even through the opaque 
glass of translation, some transcendent merits in the 
great English dramatist ; and, although we might 
be disposed to discredit Goethe's literary sense on 
account of his extravagant admiration for Byron and 
even inferior poets, there can be no doubt that the 
"Hamlet" critique in " Wilhelm Meister" aroused 
the world's attention to the vast merits and beauties 
of the poet, who, even in his own country, was fast 
sinking into oblivion. 



126 PARERGA 



XXXII 

I confess I cannot, strive as I may, take much 
delight in Shakspeare. I suppose it is again the 
Celtic temperament, dreamy, cloud- 
Shakspeare. riding, spirituelk^ that holds in aver- 

sion the strong, earthy, lusty English 
spirit, so fully embodied in Shakspeare. The 
Shakspearean delineations of character, male or 
female, are thoroughly Saxon. There is no weak- 
ness there, no delicacy. The deep strong lines that 
he has drawn would never suit the airy pencillings 
of refined and spiritual temperaments. Everything 
is massive as a Cathedral pillar; beneath every 
character, even the sweetest and purest he has drawn, 
there is an element of strength and even coarseness, 
which is not found in the higher and more fragile 
organisms of Latin races. Even the women of 
Shakspeare strike us, notwithstanding all that has 
been written to the contrary, as wanting at least in 
those graces and sweetnesses that we are wont to 
associate with the female character. We make all 
allowance for the freedom of the age, its licentious- 
ness, its bald, coarse language ; and yet, we venture 
to think that the women who were contemporaries 
of Shakspeare in other lands were of a loftier and 
purer type than he has painted, and that he has done 
some injustice to the ladies of Venice and Verona 
by attributing to them certain grosseries of manner 
and speech that we think were hardly tolerated at the 
time beyond the coasts of Albion. 



WINTER 



127 



XXXIII 

Whatever be the cause, I cannot take half the 
pleasure in Shakspeare that I experience in Milton, 
or Shelley, or Wordsworth. Forty 

^ J ^ T J L • Great Lines. 

years ago, as a student, I read him 
closely enough, and I think appreciatively ; for I 
still retain many a folio page of blue foolscap, on 
which I had culled and composed for myself certain 
" Beauties of Shakspeare." I still think he is the 
world's greatest dramatist, and closest delineator of 
human passion and conduct as he witnessed them 
at the time. But I think there is a good deal in 
human nature that he missed ; and I certainly think 
that there are far greater isolated passages of pure 
poetry in many another far less celebrated singer. 
Perhaps we cannot match the inimitable lines : 

** The multitudinous seas incarnadine ; " 

or 

** In cradle of the rude, imperious surge ; " 

but I could name passages in Milton, and Shelley, 
and Wordsworth, which for continuity of high ex- 
cellence cannot be surpassed by any similar lines in 
Shakspeare. The sustained grandeur of the stately 
speeches and noble characters in "Julius Cassar " 
have always had a supreme fascination for me ; and 
I am quite sure that all human literature does not 
hold anything so terrible as Othello's remorse after 
the murder of Desdemona. That line : " Cold, 
cold, my girl 1 " is tremendous ; and " Dead, dead, 
Desdemona dead ! Oh ! oh ! oh ! " is the climax 
of all human mental suffering. 



128 PARERGA 



XXXIV 

Now, I am ever asking, what Is it that repels me 
in Shakspeare ? I admit all his intellectual vast- 

ness and greatness. He stands alone; 
fhl^ltage'^ ^"'^ or Dante alone may stand unabashed 

by his side. Yet I cannot read him 
with pleasure, but always as a study. And I cannot 
read him for profit, even though he has my fullest 
meed of admiration. I am sure that one valid rea- 
son is that Shakspeare's plays were written for the 
stage, not for the closet ; for the glare of footlights, 
not for the student's lamp. This was borne in on 
me many years ago, when an amateur elocutionist, 
who had come into the locality on some business 
connected with lifting a sunken vessel, gave public 
recitations from Shakspeare. Wolsey's farewell was 
one of these ; and after hearing it I decided, then 
and there, that I had never read Shakspeare. What 
must have been the illumination of such renderings 
as Garrick, or Kean, or Salvini, or Siddons gave to 
their generation ! The cynical Heine confesses to 
his emotion when Kean ran wildly across the stage, 
shouting: 

" A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse ! ' ' 

I think I would advise every Shakspearean student 
to see Shakspeare first, and read him afterwards. 

XXXV 

Then, his coarseness is certainly repellent to our 

tastes. It may, or may not, be a valid apology for 

such obscenities to say that Shak- 

His Coarseness. , •',.., 

speare s age was a rough, virile one, 
when men and women spoke Rabelaisian. But we 



WINTER 129 



cannot be blamed If, with our training, we feel as if 
walking through a field of meadow sweets we were 
to stumble suddenly into some hidden cloaca^ or 
sewer, and carry the sordes with us in all our further 
walks. At least, I never take up Shakspeare with- 
out looking far before me, and carefully picking my 
steps. If the world were advancing along the lines 
of refinement and delicacy in tone and thought and 
feeling, it is possible that Shakspeare would eventu- 
ally subside into the decent retirement of Marlowe, 
or Beaumont and Fletcher. But, as the contrary is 
the case, and plainness of speech about matters 
hitherto held in discreet silence ; vulgarity of man- 
ners, arising from the unabashed and universal 
hunger after wealth ; and open revelations about 
things hitherto shrouded in a noble reticence, are the 
characteristics of our age, Shakspeare will not yet 
be dethroned. 



XXXVI 

It Is the exclusively human element In Shak- 
speare, however, that makes him so unattractive to 
many. Human nature, at its best, „ „ 

. ^ , , Too Human. 

does not seem to be always engross- 
ingly beautiful ; and one of the reasons of Words- 
worth's popularity with thinking minds is that he 
marked the natural revulsion from the Byronic 
school, with its gross pictures of corsairs, Don 
Juans, and voluptuous women, and insisted on a 
return to the simplicity and sweetness of nature. 
And human nature in Shakspeare is not of the 
highest and holiest type. There is a vast, nay, 
disproportionate preponderance of ugly and deter- 
rent types. He appears to have created his women 
9 



130 PARERGA 



types as a foil to the large number of bestial and 
incontinent rascals he has produced. In one 
way, his heroines redeemed his heroes. But even 
amongst his heroines, but a few, a Cordelia, a Des- 
demona, a Portia, or a Juliet, answer our ideas of 
what is sweetest, gentlest, and best in womanhood. 

XXXVII 

Heine puts it more strongly in his defence of the 
Shakspearean unities — the enchainement des sceneSy in 
which French critics supposed Shak- 
Shak^ ^are speare to be lamentably at fault. 

" This world forms the stage of 
his plays, and that is his unity of place ; eternity is 
the period in which his plays come to pass, and that 
is his unity of time; and the hero of his plays, the 
bright central figure, representing the unity of action 
and conformable to the other two, is — Mankind ; 
a hero, who is always dying and always rising again, 
always loving, always hating, yet in whom love is 
stronger than hate ; now crawling like a worm, now 
soaring like an eagle, now deserving a fool's-cap, 
now a laurel-wreath, or still oftener, both of these at 
the same time ; the great dwarf, the small giant, the 
homoeopathically prepared divinity, in whom the 
divine elements may have become diluted, but 
which nevertheless exist. Ah, let us not overrate 
the heroism of this hero, for the sake of modesty 
and very shame 1 " 



WINTER 131 



XXXVIII 

As a result of this too exclusive dealing with 
humanity (his dramas being the exact antithesis of 
Dante's in this respect) there is a 
singular dearth of those great and No Abstractions 

, r . 1 I 11 o ... in Shakspeare. 

lorty ideas that belong to spiritual 
souls, and are, as it were, the properties of eternity. 
Shakspeare is essentially concrete in his art. He 
is a historian rather than a poet. He gives us " the 
very eye and body of the time; " but he does not clothe 
it in the subjectivity of a great creative intellect. 
Abstractions do not exist for him. Great principles, 
heroic dealings with life's mysteries. Titanic ideas of 
scaling the bastions of Heaven and wresting their 
secrets from the gods, are not to be found in his 
dramatic presentments. Once and again, as in 
Prospero's meditation, 

" We are such stuff as dreams are made on. 
And our little life is rounded by a sleep; " 

or, as in the lines : 

*' To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day ; " 

he repeats the words of Ecclesiastes, or the sad re- 
flection of Job ; but even this petty philosophy is 
infrequent. Men and manners, intrigues and chi- 
canery, blustering kings and unfeminine women, 
fools and debauchees flit across his pages. There are 
many types of humanity left unrepresented ; and 
the gallery is of gay, and interesting, but hardly of 
very sublime or edifying personalities. 



132 PARERGA 



XXXIX 

The supreme merit of Shakspeare seems to lie m 
his perfect delineation of character ; and his marvel- 
lous adaptation of the English lan- 
PahSn*^' guage to scenes and incidents that 

are truly dramatic. The language, 
just then in course of formation, was necessarily 
more virile and less loaded with foreign accretions 
than at any time since his period. And hence we 
find words in common use even now, but bearing in 
his pages certain peculiar meanings, owing perhaps 
to their collocation, which are far more marked than 
in their present use. I suppose no writer nowadays 
would use the expression : 

** all gi/t with Frenchmen's blood; " 

or speak of the clouds as : 

" base contagious clouds ; *' 

or would dare use such a bold simile as : 

♦' Enfeoffed himself to popularity. 
That being daily swallowed by men's eyes. 
They surfeited with honey." 

or that fine line : 

" horsed 
Upon the sightless couriers of the air." 

These strained uses of language, these tremen- 
dous metaphors, these forced conceits and antith- 
eses are peculiarities of his age. We find them in 
Marlowe, in Beaumont and Fletcher, etc. ; and if 



WINTER 133 



it be true that Shakspeare borrowed the plans and 
ideas of all his plays from previous stage represen- 
tations, we must also admit that in the style of his 
dialogues and discourses he surpassed all his con- 
temporaries, without originating anything new. 

XL 

Hence I do not know that we can address the 
shade of Shakspeare in the language just used by 
an admirer to Carducci, the author 
of the " Hymn to Satan," and other ^°' ^ ^'"^*°'- 
such poems — " Creatore e plasmatore di coscienza ; 
artista del pensiero." Nor do I think the shade of 
Shakspeare would be gratified. His massive Eng- 
lish intellect, his calm, majestic manner, outwardly 
manifested by the gentle, intellectual face that is so 
familiar to the world, would probably shrink from 
the too emphatic compliments of French and Italian 
admirers. It is only Latins and Celts that push 
things to such extremes. The English and Teu- 
tonic genius is pivoted on a more firm basis. It is 
slow to move, and when moved, it proceeds calmly 
and with dignity. But " Creatore e plasmatore"? 
Hardly. " Holding the mirror up to Nature " 
is much better. Shakspeare was not a Michael 
Angelo that could create. He needed a world of 
men and women as types to be transferred to the 
canvas of his poems, and thence paraded on the 
stage. 



[34 PARERGA 



XLI 

Will the Shakspeare-Bacon controversy ever be 
settled? Hardly, unless fresh documentary evi- 

Shakspeare- ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ brought to light. The 

Bacon Contro- arguments on both sides seem over- 
^«"y- whelming. It is impossible to im- 

agine Bacon speak of the Romans as wearing hats, 
ships landing in Bohemia, and Aristotle contem- 
porary with the Trojan war. And here is a pretty 
little blunder that that philosopher could never 
make; 

** Timon hath made his everlasting mansion 
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood ; 
Whom once a day with his embossed froth 
The turbulent surge may cover." 

On the other hand, if the Earl of Pembroke be 
the hero of the sonnets, and Mistress Fitton their 
heroine, it seems incredible that one, brought up 
like Shakspeare, and only a few years removed 
from more or less plebeian surroundings, could ad- 
dress such familiarly affectionate language to one 
who was so far removed by birth and station. 



XLII 

I have a suspicion that most English thinkers are 
now convinced that the man Shakspeare who came 
. up to London from Stratford-on- 
ng IS pinion. ^^^^^^ ^^^ \\Q\d horses at the doors 
of theatres for many years, could never have been 
the author of such marvellous dramas and poems. 
But they cannot bring themselves to extinguish one 



WINTER 



135 



of their great luminaries, even though it added to 
the exceeding great lustre of the other. National 
pride has hitherto exulted in these twins of genius, 
Bacon and Shakspeare; it cannot bear the thought 
that there was but " one bright, particular star," in 
its firmament. And national pride is responsible 
not only for the sins of statesmen, but for a great 
many of the more venial offences that are com- 
mitted in the more secluded domains of literature. 
I say " venial," for they are easily pardonable. 
And a world that does not love England will at 
least forgive it for its glorious pride in Shakspeare. 
He is her guardian angel — her pontiff, who, if 
ever the Huns and Goths shall leap the narrow slit 
of sea that has hitherto saved England from de- 
struction, and penetrate to her capital, shall warn 
them back, as Leo warned Attila from the walls of 
Rome. If it could be proved that Shakspeare was 
a myth, it would be a greater loss to England than 
that of her Indian empire, or even — Ireland ! 



XLIII 

There is a curious passage on this subject in a 
letter to his wife written by Lord Houghton, whose 
individual opinion is valuable, inas- 
much as he must have discussed the ^°'^ Houghton, 
question hundreds of times with all that was best in 
London literary circles, and gathered his opinions 
from them : 

Turin, Wednesday. 

I have yours of the tenth, so you see we are not very 

far asunder. This place is new to me, and not easily got 

at again, and the personages amusing, so I have settled to 

stay here until the end of the week, and cut Pans short. You 



136 PARERGA 



would like this climate very much, a sky continually bright, 
and fresh air. I think it keeps me rather "tender" and 
nervous. I am afraid I shall be at Stoneleigh on the 
twenty-third and you must write up to Stanley, who, who- 
ever, I believe you may say, agrees with me that there 
never was such a man as the lamented Shakspeare. 

XLIV 

What if, after all, we find that the word " Shaks- 
peare," instead of standing for an immortal unit, was 
really, like Homer, a mere symbol 
for a multitude of players and drama- 
tists which then thronged the theatres of London.? 
Or, if there were the man, Shakspeare, that he was 
but a clever collector, " a picker-up of pearls from 
dunghills," a kind of chiifonier, who gathered up the 
remnants and rags and potsherds of plays, the casual 
observations of philosophers, the tavern gossip of 
travellers, the inspired utterances of drunken poets, 
and mixed them all in the alembic of his own genius, 
or took up the discarded discoveries or creations of 
others and gave them an immortal name, as the ad- 
venturer Vespucci did for Columbus and the West- 
ern Republic. I find no difficulty in imagining a 
Bacon, or a Raleigh, or lesser souls, amusing them- 
selves, in the leisure of high political intrigues, in 
watching the progress of a London play ; and 
sometimes furtively bringing down to the green- 
room of the theatre a manuscript, composed in the 
intervals of business, and asking that young man, 
William Shakspeare, to put it before the public in 
his own name. Noblesse oblige ! and it would never 
do for a Lord Chancellor to appear before the 
footlights as the creator of clowns and fools and 
madmen. 



WINTER 



-^-^1 



XLV 

Two things we are prone to forget in forming 
our estimate of the Shakspearean dramas. The first 
is, that in the EHzabethan age the 
theatre was everything. There was J^ni^Jtent! 
practically no other amusement for 
city folks. Where we have institutes, and societies, 
and clubs, the geniuses of that day had the tavern ; 
and for travelling, cycling, motoring, for Carlsbad 
and Aix-le-Bains and Marienbad, there was no sub- 
stitute but the theatre. Education ranked higher, 
even though not so widely extended ; and theatricals, 
in public or private, were the order of the day. 
Yet, at that time, the player and actor or dramatist 
was regarded by high society somewhat as we regard 
the strolling player of to-day — the Crumlesses, 
Codlins, and Shorts of a bygone period. Yet, se- 
cretly and surreptitiously, genius saw that what was 
good enough for ancient Greeks might be good 
enough for the modern Briton ; and perhaps states- 
manlike Bacon foresaw that, if a high patriotic 
sentiment was to be maintained in the country, it 
would be most happily fostered by the presentation 
of historical plays, where the great figures that had 
passed across the stage of English history might be 
again brought to life and action on the mimic stage 
of a London theatre. 

XLVI 

And in the second place, we are prone to forget 
that the nervous, sinewy English of Shakspeare, and 
the dialogues interspersed everywhere d m t 

were really an exact reproduction of 
every-day manners and speech amongst his contem- 



38 PARERGA 



poraries, only raised just a little to suit the dignity 
of the stage. Those little witticisms, the eternal 
play on words, the antitheses and sly allusions, the 
bold metaphors and the dainty euphuisms, so utterly 
foreign to our most commonplace utterances, were in 
constant use in good society at that time. The 
amusement of camps and courts, the pleasures of 
country life, even the stately surroundings of the royal 
palaces, were enhanced by this studied interchange 
of wit and puns. The great queen herself did not 
disdain to join sometimes in this jeu de mots; and a 
passport to her equivocal favour was adroitness in 
the use of language, and a knowledge of all the 
quips and cranks that could be played on the simple 
English tongue. This was not quite the same style 
of wit that in pre-revolution times, the ages of 
Louis XIV. and XV., made the salons of Paris 
famous. The Elizabethans were witty punsters 
and broad humourists. The French do not know 
what humour is, even if they be the wittiest race in 
the world. 



XLVII 

I think the neatest summing-up of the arguments 

pro and con in the Bacon-Shakspeare 

Oplnfor^^^^'^ controversy is that of Judge V^ebb, 

although I cannot bind myself to 

his decision : 

"In the case of the authorship of the Shak- 
spearean plays there are circumstances of difficulty 
which are common to both candidates for the su- 
preme distinction. As far as appearances go, neither 
of them claimed to be the author ; neither of them 
published the immortal works ; neither of them 
gave any directions for their publication ; neither 



WINTER 



139 



of them mentioned them in his will ; and to all 
appearance either of them was utterly insensible to 
their literary value, and each of them was utterly 
indifferent to their ultimate fate. The only diifer- 
ence between the two is this — that if the Player 
were the author of the Shakspearean plays, he had 
every motive to proclaim the fact; while if the 
Lawyer and Statesman was the author, he had 
every reason to conceal it." 



XLVIII 

In saying that Shakspeare did not know every- 
thing, I am curiously reminded of an acquaintance, 
who has long since passed beyond 
my ken, but in whom at one time m.^a"'^"'^^^ 
I felt some interest. When I first 
knew him he was a gentleman-graduate, B. A., or 
possibly M. A., of Cambridge; and in dress, man- 
ner, deportment, all that could be expected of a 
scholar and a gentleman. I was a young missioner 
in an English city, and had not even a nodding 
acquaintance with him ; but the glamour of a uni- 
versity education to my imagination hung around 
him ; he was one of the Dii majores to be addressed 
with "bated breath and whispering humbleness." 
I little thought that the day would come, and come 
swiftly, when he would be glad to get a sixpence 
from me to buy bread, or — drink ! That word 
explains all. He had come down, or rather rushed 
down the declivities of Hfe pell-mell ; and now lay 
a broken and distorted wreck amongst the human 
debris cast out by fate from the urn of necessity. 
The silk hat had given way to a broken bowler ; 
the shining boots to patched and broken shoes ; the 



140 PARERGA 



morning coat, without fray or crease, to a wretched 
blue serge jacket with broken buttonholes, tied 
with a piece of cord, and badly concealed, or half- 
revealed by a long, grey dust-coat, whitening under 
use and time. 

XLIX 

When I first made his acquaintance, he had not 
tumbled quite amongst the potsherds. He hung 

suspended, like those mountain genii 
UnrvtrsiSes°^ ^^ ^^e piazza at Turin, driven out by 

the forces of civilisation from their 
mountain fastnesses, and hanging head downwards, 
like falling angels, on the facile descents towards 
Avernus. He was a bruised and beaten, but not a 
conquered spirit. I cannot remember now how I 
struck up an acquaintance with him, but I well re- 
member how deeply I was impressed by the wide 
range of his acquirements, and, above all, by that 
peculiar pronunciation of Greek and Latin which 
seems to be cachet of a university training. Yes ! 
there was the educated gentleman seen through all 
the sad disguise of rags and penury. Nothing 
seemed strange or unfamiliar to him in all ancient 
and modern literature. He quietly and unostenta- 
tiously passed along from the " Electra " of Eu- 
ripides to the " Henriade " of Voltaire and the 
" Iphigenia in Tauris " of Goethe. He was eking 
out a wretched subsistence at the time, in a narrow 
room in a squalid back lane in the city, by teaching 
a few little schoolboys at night a little writing, a 
little geography, and the Rule of Three. He took 
his professorial fees mostly in drink. I could have 
cried for him, and yet he was always protesting that 
he was not an object of disdain nor of compassion ! 



WINTER 141 



But where did I bring in Shakspeare ? Oh, 
yes, 1 remember. I was one day deploring his 
misery when, at a certain railway sta- ^ ^.^^^ ^^ 
tion which he frequented for obvi- laogue. 

ous purposes, he accosted me for a shilling. 

" I hope," I said, " that you have found the jewel 
in the head of the toad Adversity." 

He had not the slightest sense of humour. He 
was always grave, calm, majestic in his rags. 

" Yes," he said, " and perhaps more successfully 
than you may be disposed to imagine. I have 
found the elixir of life. I am like the emperor of 
old : I drink of nectar in which pearls are broken 
and dissolved." 

1 stopped. 

" Have you much time at your disposal ? " he 
asked. 

" Well, the magnificent unpunctuality of these 
trains," I replied, " has given me compulsorily 
three-quarters of an hour. I have no objection 
to a Socratic disputation. But you .? " 

"Oh, my day's work is done," he said. "You 
have given me a shilling, with which I can purchase 
Nirvana^ and sufficient for the day is the good 
thereof. But" — he hesitated a little, and I thought 
I saw a faint pink blush steal up on his pallid face — 
"you — eh? — are not ashamed to walk up and 
down such a public place with me ^. " 

" Not in the least, my dear fellow. I am known 
pretty well here. So are you. It won't affect either 
of us materially." 

"Good ! 'T is a pleasure to meet with a philoso- 
pher. Now, you mentioned Socrates, I think ? " 



142 PARERGA 



" Yes," I replied. 

" I presume you admire him ? " 

"Well, somewhat," I said in a tentative way; "he 
was very ugly, you know; and then — Xanthippe!" 

"Well, ugliness is a recommendation — some- 
times. Beauty is always a dono infelice. But 
Xanthippe, — that is legendary, invented by some 
admirer who wanted to excuse the mightiest of sages 
for what needed no apology, inasmuch as it consti- 
tuted the chief element in the Socratic philosophy." 

" You surprise me," I said ; " how is that ? " 

"Well, sir," said my tramp, "the chief constitu- 
ent in the Socratic, as indeed in all philosophy, is 
the discovery of the great secret of anesthesia" 

I still looked puzzled. 

" Have you never read that Socrates was able to 
drink Alkibiades " (he had an old habit of always 
pronouncing the Greek as in the original) " and all 
the other golden youth of Athens under the table?" 

" Ye-es," I said dubiously. "Are you making a 
new Apologia ? " 

"No, no!" he said quickly. "That would be 
dishonourable. But in that marvellous faculty of 
the great sage consisted all his wisdom. I presume 
you admire his glorious death, — martyrdom I be- 
lieve it is called ? " 

" Certainly. I think it was sublime ! " 

" So do I. But probably our reasons differ. His 
death was a euthanasia^ not for any sacrifice it in- 
volved, for there was none; not for his serenity, 
because there was nothing to alarm him, — but be- 
cause he died as he had lived, seeking happiness by 
the mere cessation of sensation. He had found 
the great secret. So have I." 

" I am glad indeed to hear it," I murmured 



WINTER 143 



faintly. " Do you know, I have been commiser- 
ating you all these years." 

" Quite unnecessary, sir," he said grandly. " I 
assure you your commiseration was quite misplaced. 
You see before you a man who is passing through 
life with undisturbed serenity, and who will face 
death calmly because of its even more profound 
peace." 

" I am really delighted to hear it," I said. " I 
wish I had your secret." 

" 'T is yours already," he replied, " but, like the 
vast majority of the species, you don't know it. It 
is contained in the philosophy of Locke, — all pain 
comes from knowledge, all knowledge from sensa- 
tion ; therefore destroy sensation and you annihilate 
knowledge, and, with knowledge, pain. Hence you 
see the wisdom of Socrates. He knew the value 
of anaesthetics in life and in death, in wine and 
hemlock." 

I murmured something about the higher faculties, 

— reason, conscience, sense of responsibility, hon- 
our, etc. 

"All moonshine, sir!" he said. "Pardon the 
expression. These things are all the action, or irri- 
tability of nerves. Love, — the irritation of a certain 
set of nerves. Ambition, — the excitement at the 
centre of some other gangHon. Avarice, — another 
set called into play. Zeal, philanthropy, charity, — 
all nerves, nerves, nerves ! Emotion, pleasure, pain, 

— all words denoting the mere titillation of nerves ; 
and all meaning the same thing." 

" Surely you don't contend that pleasure is pain, 
and vice versa ? " 

" Certainly ! " he replied. " For example, take 
love, that paltry and puerile passion, of which, I am 



144 PARERGA 



proud to say, I am absolutely immune. Analyse it ! 
And who can tell you whether it is pleasure or tor- 
ment ? If you cannot analyse, go to the great chem- 
ist and analyser, Shakspeare. Read his Anthony 
and Cleopatra. For one pleasure, paltry, if not de- 
grading, he suffered the torments of the damned. 
Take ambition ! Look at Napoleon ! Glory, vic- 
tory, honour, power ! All words, words, words ! 
His valet, who heard him rise from his camp bed after 
Austerlitz and Wagram, and heard him mutter, 
" Une autre bataille " in an accent of despair, knew 
better. Look at your millionaires — your Goulds, 
your Vanderbilts, your Rockefellers, your Barnatos ! 
Toiling like dray-horses to get money, and then 
groaning in spasms, like a boa-constrictor, until it is 
disgorged and dissipated. Look at me, at me ! " 

I looked. He was not an attractive object. The 
electric bell in the Northern Hut marked the ap- 
proach of my train. 

"Would you believe that I used to dine with 
great people at the Criterion, London ? Yes, sir ! I 
drank champagne at six pounds the dozen, and never 
smoked anything under a shilling cheroot. Was I 
happy ? No ! Nerves and sensations again. I 
hated, loved, winced under sarcastic looks, culti- 
vated homicidal feelings in my heart. Here at The 
Crown, with a clay pipe, a glass of Cognac, and a 
clientele of half-drunken labourers I reason, argue, 
talk, philosophise, rule, govern, — am a king ! " 

" Yes ! " I replied, — 

" 'Kings may be blest. But Tarn was glorious. 
O'er all the ills of life victorious.' " 

" Precisely ! The immortal exciseman and 
ploughman knew the secret of life. And behold ! 



WINTER 



145 



Men have raised more monuments to his glorious 
memory than to WelHngton or Napoleon. The 
verdict of the world is always right ; it recognises 
its kings, — Burns, Mangan, Poe, Maginn, Balzac, 
Murger, Schiller, Coleridge, — myself." 

" You have n't mentioned Shakspeare," I said, 
"amongst the kings!" 

"N — no!" he replied hesitatingly. "A man 
that could quit the taverns and theatres of London 
at middle-age, when life is in its right ascendant, and 
go down to a provincial town with money" (his 
voice took on an accent of disgust), " money, and 
actually invested in house property — think of it — 
house property, was never a king of intellect. He 
wore the mask and buskins — that was all ! " 

" But Shakspeare died in a drunken bout ! " I 
pleaded. 

He started, and a smile of ineffable pleasure 
seemed to cross his palHd face. 

" Did he ? " he cried, in the accent of one that 
had saved a lost soul. 

" So it is reported," I replied. 

"I am so glad!" he said, still smiling. "After 
all, Shakspeare was one of us ! " 

I bade him good-bye ! and took my seat. Two 
fine ladies, dressed like peacocks, and probably with 
the intellects of oysters, looked askance at me. As 
the train glided from the platform, I looked out. I 
thought I saw the frayed skirt of a drab overcoat 
vanishing through the door of a third-class refresh- 
ment-room. 



146 PARERGA 



LI 

I wonder is there a more terrible thing in Hfe than 
to see a noble mind, raised by its own nature, and 
by the study of great works, far up 
on the shining peaks, where the poet 
and idealist alone can breathe ; and after such an 
earthly apotheosis suddenly compelled to descend 
to earth and exchange, under the bare coercion of 
securing the necessaries of life, all the splendours of 
imagination, all the glorious dreams of cloud and 
mountain-top for the bare, bald realities of every-day 
existence ? And yet it is the fate of many bright 
spirits. Natural disposition, training, experience, 
seem to open up for such souls a long happy life 
teeming with all kinds of felicities, and very far re- 
moved from the gross and sordid materialism of 
every-day life. It is a terrible disillusion when an 
acquaintance with these conditions becomes a neces- 
sity of existence. And when once this necessity be- 
comes apparent, there is no return to the land of 
dreams and high imaginings. The beautiful papilio. 
Psyche, is stripped of her wings, and never has 
strength to put them out again. 

LII 

How to combine the ideal and the real, the 
Dichtung und Wahrheit of existence, is a difficult 

problem, a feat that but few have 
Shakspeare successfully performed. Shakspeare 

is one example, as we have just 
quoted; Goethe is another; Tennyson is a third. 
There certainly is some feeling of bathos and anti- 
climax in the life of Shakspeare. It seems impos- 



WINTER 147 



sible that the mind that wrote " Hamlet," and, still 
more, the " Sonnets," could actually be descending at 
the time to the paltry considerations of receipts at 
the pit or gallery of a theatre ; and should rush 
away from the scene of such tremendous triumphs 
to buy a few houses in his native village. It leads 
one to suspect that the divine genius, as we are 
wont to consider him, was after all but a commer- 
cial speculator, investing in poetry and philosophy 
simply for the remuneration that an age which was 
impassioned about such things freely and ungrudg- 
ingly gave. One suspects the genuineness of Sen- 
eca's philosophy when we know he was a usurer, 
and died worth three million sesterces ; and one sus- 
pects the divinity of Shakspeare when we find him 
buying houses out of the proceeds of his .plays. 



LIII 

I am of opinion that no modern writer approaches 
Shakspeare but one. That is Jean Paul. They 
are the two Titans ; but Shakspeare 
prefers to remain on earth. But for j^l^^-^^^l^ ^""^ 
wielding, forging, and hurling the 
thunderbolts of mighty words and startling meta- 
phors, and antitheses and contrasts that strike you 
with a shock, they stand alone. There are not in 
Richter the grand varieties and diversities of charac- 
ter that make the dramas of Shakspeare such a brill- 
iant and glowing mass of colour. He affects rather 
the simple life of simple German people, except 
where, as in his " Titan," he reflects the thoughts 
and manners of the nobility in rank and genius. 
But I doubt if Shakspeare approaches Richter in the 
richness and exuberance of his fancy. The great 



PARERGA 



difference is that Shakspeare uses metaphors in 
words which Richter elaborates into similes. But 
two such daring, insolent, triumphant demigods the 
world has not seen before or since their times. 
Some critics, who clearly have never read beyond 
Flower, Fruit, and 'Thorn-PieceSy are content to rank 
Richter with Sterne or Goldsmith. When you have 
read Levana you rank him with Bacon ; when you 
have read Titan or Hesperus, with Shakspeare. 



LIV 

If he had had the musical and dramatic power 

of Shakspeare, or if Shakspeare had had his fancy 

and power of seeing metaphor everv- 

Souls and Stars. ,^ ,^ -Tl-^ ij 

where, what an mtercnange it would 
have been ! In the vast range and scope and cir- 
cumference of thought, Shakspeare easily outstrips 
his rival ; but his thoughts, his domain, is always 
of the earth, earthy. Richter is circumscribed in 
abundance and variety ; but in his leap towards the 
Infinite he is illimitable, or only bounded by Space. 
In reading Shakspeare one walks amongst men and 
women, however diverse their worth ; in reading 
Richter one is always in view of souls and stars. 
He never allows us to forget that this little human 
theatre is o'ercanopied by the sky ; and that life is 
but the vestibule of eternities. Hence the gross 
materialism of Shakspeare, however real it may be, 
contrasts but ill with the lofty spiritualism of 
Richter. A Gione, or Amone, or Nadine, are 
spirits beside such beings as even a Miranda, 
or a Rosalind. 



WINTER 149 



LV 

Yet I found that in Germany Richter is no 
longer read. The enthusiasm that hailed the pub- 
lication of every new book, the fer- ^. ^ 

... /, J 1*1 Richter not read. 

vid letters addressed to him by 
admirers of every rank and station, the tremulous 
worship of women, — all have passed away. Goethe 
and Schiller are still in the heyday of popularity and 
triumph ; and every year seems to make the Goethe- 
Haus, in Frankfort, the centre of larger pilgrimages, 
— the Mecca of Goethe-worshippers from all parts 
of the civilised world. It is easily accounted for. 
Richter's abominable obscurities, that made a 
Richter-Lexicon necessary even during his life, 
repel modern readers, who, in the stress and storm 
of modern conditions, have no time to spend in 
penetrating such labyrinths of thought ; and, in the 
second place, that humanism, which has become 
the religion of our age, and which has made Shak- 
speare so popular, has told with equal effect against 
the romanticism of Richter, and in favour of the 
refined paganism of Goethe. It is possible that a 
wave of romanticism, such as that which created 
Tieck, Novalis, and the Schlegels, may again sweep 
over Germany. If it does, the transcendental spirit 
may again leap into the ascendant, and the Aufkla- 
rung, the lUuminism, of Goethe, sink submerged, 
at least for a time. 



I50 PARERGA 



LVI 

It was at one time said that Faust was the Bible 
of Freemasonry, as Shakspeare was the Bible of Hu- 
manity. It was forgotten that the 
Fre"emlsonry. religion of Freemasonry (for it is a 
distinct religion, with its ecumenic 
confessions of faith, its liturgy, its orders, its wor- 
ship) and the religion of Humanity are the same; 
and both are atheistical. The first Freemason 
lodge in Germany was founded in 1733 at Ham- 
burg; the first English lodge in 1717. It was 
from English deists that the inspirations of athe- 
ism, which bore such fearful fruit in France, were 
carried to the Continent. It was from French 
Deists that the evils were carried over the frontiers 
into Germany, and there bore fruit in the human- 
ism, illuminism, of the eighteenth century, and the 
rationalism of the nineteenth. Rousseau and Vol- 
taire preached it in France, and the cult of Goethe 
and Shakspeare arose simultaneously in Germany. 
Those evil spirits have never been laid. They 
assume Protean forms; but the genetic impulse in 
atheism and humanism is the same. They have 
one enemy; and only one — the Catholic Church. 

LVII 

There are three great religions, and only three. 
All others are oflFshoots or branches of these. They 
are Christian Theism, Spinosism, and 
Religions. Humanism. Or otherwise, God, 

Matter, and Man. The first is the 
logical issue of all reasonable thought ; the second is 
the stopping-place, where Reason sinks down faint- 



WINTER 



151 



ing, and Faith cannot wing it over the abyss ; the 
third is the hypostasis of the most foolish pride 
that ever entered the mind of a created being, God 
is the term of all fine intellects working upward and 
outward through the covering and integuments of 
matter towards the everlasting Ideal. Substance, or 
matter is the worship of Illuminism or Materialism 
with its motto, JVahr ist^ was Klar ist [True is all that 
clear is!). Humanism is the most abject of idolatries, 
worse than that of the Scarabasus or the Ibis, for 
these were but symbols of something far beyond, 
whereas Humanism is the worship, direct and im- 
mediate of Man, unless we suppose, as Fichte did, 
that the aggregate of mankind is God; or that the 
progress of the ages tends to extract from the womb 
of time the God that is yet to be created. 

LVIII 

How this pretty Deity, called Humanity, conducts 
himself has been seen in all human history ; but 
most of all in that period of enlighten- ., 

, 1 • 1 1 • 1 Humanism. 

ment and progress which culmmated 
in the glories of the French Revolution. The Free- 
masonic, humanistic circles which commenced with 
dreams of it knew not what, which would lead to a 
new awakening it knew not where, were suddenly 
broken into segments of Jacobins and Girondists, 
Dantonists and Robespierrists, each apparently de- 
termined to show, with all the fury and ferocity of 
wild beasts, how completely they could eliminate the 
very root-elements of all that is human and civilised 
from the human heart. The world has seen greater 
human holocausts than those which were offered up 
to Hate and Passion on the Place de la Concorde. 



52 PARERGA 



The pyramids of skulls that marked the track of 
Tamerlane, and the very grass withering under the 
feet of the horse of Attila might seem more ap- 
palling. But for ghastly surroundings, for a revolt- 
ing exhibition of all that was possible to human 
guilt and depravity, the French Revolution bears 
away the palm. The very excuses made for its 
enormities only aggravate them. After reading 
these nightmare details of orgies never equalled by 
Imperial Rome, one can never think of Paris again 
as the centre of the world's civilisation. It is the 
cabaret de la mort. We can quite understand why 
Cardinal Newman, in his Anglican days, faced the 
horrors of a sea-voyage rather than set foot on the 
soil of France. 



WINTER 



f53 



Section III 

LIX 

Just as I write these words, comes news from 
that same France, witty, intellectual, Freemason 
and humanistic, of another revolu- 
tion, unbloody but truculent and R^^ic^k^^ °^ 
inhuman. That cry of humanity 
seems to mean, by some perversity, whatever is in- 
human, just as the watchword " Fraternity " seems 
to usher in every fratricidal struggle. The strange 
thing, however, is that the French people, supposed 
to be witty and sarcastic, seem to have utterly lost 
these national talents. Why Robespierre, who de- 
creed the existence of the Supreme Being, was not 
killed with ridicule long before his shattered head 
fell beneath the guillotine, we find it diificult to 
conjecture. And why his modern imitator, Viviani, 
who, in our days, has " by one magnificent gesture 
swept the Supreme Being out of existence," is not 
annihilated under a storm of sarcastic pleasantry, is 
also unintelligible! Is France doomed? Has she 
lost her sense of ridicule, — or that fine perception of 
her own absurdities, which, alas ! does not always 
accompany the dangerous talent of seeing and noting 
the sad beiises to which other individuals and natures 
are subject? 



54 PARERGA 



LX 

What is this Shakspeare says — 

• ** But man, proud man, 

Drest in a little brief authority, — 
Most ignorant of what he 's most assured. 
His glassy essence, — like an angry ape 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 
As make the angels weep." 

No ! my dear Mentor of Humanity, it is not 
over such scenes that angels weep. It is over such 

scenes that the young angels scream 
Laug^"e^r^^^' ^^^^ riotous laughter. They may 

weep and shed their tears in wintry 
rains across the dreary landscapes of earth, over little 
children broken on the bed of suffering, or over 
some lost, struggling soul, making ineffectual efforts 
to regain some forfeited position. But for the little 
parasites of this moth-planet, this grain of sand in 
space, who arrogate to themselves attributes too 
great for the seraphim, and whom their own scien- 
tific and critical spirit cannot convince of the truth 
of their insignificance, although they think it de- 
thrones the Eternal ; who make themselves Gods, 
whilst Science declares them atoms, — for such there 
are no tears in Heaven, only the inextinguishable 
laughter of the happy immortals. 

LXI 

There is another point of resemblance between 
the master-mind of England and the 

ShovT"^^^* master-mind of Germany. They keep 

their own personalities very much in 

the background. They refuse to appear on the 



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155 



stage. Showmen of that puppet-tragico-comic the- 
atre of varieties called the world they stand in the 
wings, away from the naphtha-fuses that flare and 
smoke in the wind; and cry aloud: 

" Come up, ladies and gentlemen ! come up, and 
see my show, — the only real and genuine present- 
ment of the ever-entertaining, ever-amusing troupe 
of mimes and tragedians, called Humanity. Come 
up ! come up ! Only sixpence ! Only sixpence ! 
And you will see kings and queens, fools and 
mountebanks, courtiers and knights, tavern-brawlers 
and heroes, bishops and friars, nuncios and cardi- 
nals, warriors and boasters, dainty ladies and disrep- 
utable drabs, Greeks and Romans, Christians and 
infidels and Jews, English and French, Danes and 
Normans, Welsh and Irish and Scotch, ghosts 
and sprites, monsters and angels, hideous witches 
and dainty Ariels and Queen Mabs, murderers, sui- 
cides, violence, craft, — all that belongs to the com- 
mon herd, humanity, nothing omitted that you 
may find elsewhere ; for this is the only, real, un- 
adulterated, genuine Masque of Humanity. Sole 
Proprietor, William Shakspeare, under the distin- 
guished Patronage of Baron Verulam, the Earl of 
Pembroke, Sir Walter Raleigh. Come up ! Come 
up!" 

Is it a fraud ? No ! Shakspeare's Masque of 
Humanity is perfect. 

LXII 

So too with the German puppet-show ! Actors 
and actresses, princes and clowns, countesses and 
hinds, Greek priests and German mys- 
tics, philosophers and country maidens, Goethe, 
fiends and witches, sages and children, — all stream 



156 PARERGA 



athwart the motley stage. The same heroism, the 
same coarseness, the same licentiousness, the same 
bravery and self-sacrifice, that mark the English 
puppet-show are here. But the noble figures do 
not reach the height of Shakspeare's heroes; and 
the lower types are more revolting. The actors in 
"Hamlet" are very much the same as those in 
" Wilheim Meister " ; but the witches that chal- 
lenged the returning warriors on the blackened 
heath are not quite so loathsome as those who 
danced on the Brocken on the Walpurgis-Nacht, 
and Caliban is hardly as gross as the man-created 
Homunculi. I doubt if in all dramatic literature 
there is a more revolting scene than that on the 
Brocken ; or a more revolting and significant and 
bestial incident than that of the red mouse leaping 
from the mouth of the young beauty with whom 
Faust was dancing. But then there are creeping 
things everywhere in Goethe. And Retsch has 
done badly in depicting them in his line engravings. 



LXIII 

Yet here is a significant and pregnant fact. 
Goethe and Schiller lie side by side in the mauso- 
leum of the Grand Dukes of Weimar. 
A writer, who seemed to love both 
equally well, tells us that at his last visit, the coffin 
of Schiller was piled high with flowers, placed there 
reverently, and reverently renewed, day by day, by 
hands of worshippers ; whilst, on the casket that 
holds Goethe's remains there are a few withered 
blossoms, and no more. How can we explain this 
phenomenon ; this strange discrepancy between the 
verdict of the literary and artistic world, and the 



WINTER 



157 



verdict of the popular heart? Is it that Schiller 
was more patriotic ? — for Goethe was too great to be 
a patriot. Or is it that the former spoke more 
immediately to the heart of humanity than his ma- 
jestic friend and rival ? Or is it that Schiller's 
personality passed into his works, and that his thin, 
worn, intellectual features shine from every page ; 
whilst Goethe is but the showman, in the side- 
scenes, with his bell and corbona for honours and 
rewards ? We do not know ; but the vox populi 
sometimes, not always, seems to ring out a true 
note of appreciation. 



LXIV 

Very many of the finest spirits in modern lit- 
erature, no matter what might have been their 
starting-point in reading, seem to 
drift unvaryingly and untiringly^ in MysS°sm^.°* 
the direction of German mysticism 
and transcendentalism. Germany is the home of 
idealism. The Christian mystic finds much food 
for thought in the writings of Tauler and Ruys- 
broeck and Thomas a Kempis. And the literary 
mind, even though it should not make German 
transcendentalism the terminus of its search after 
fresh and virgin thought, will nevertheless find itself 
drifting, by the sheer necessities of modern tenden- 
cies, towards the literature of that period which 
marked the very zenith and apogee of German 
genius. As every road leads to Rome, every train 
of thought seems by some invincible attraction to lead 
onwards to that cloudland and mistland where great 
spirits seem not only to have found a footing and a 
rest, but to have disported themselves in effortless 



158 PARERGA 



felicities amongst ideas and problems the very names 
of which are calculated to make weaker spirits faint. 
Alas that all this should be so largely consecrated to 
error, so vehement against revealed and lifegiving 
truth ! What a gigantic aerial tournament or intel- 
lectual joust it would be if in the Coliseum, or other 
world-gymnasium, the spirit of an Aquinas could be 
pitted against Kant, Suarez against Spinoza, Ros- 
mini against Hegel ! I have not mentioned St. 
Augustine. It would need an archangel to be wor- 
thily placed face to face against that supreme and 
serene intellect. 



LXV 

But I think the secret of that general tendency 
towards the metaphysical schools of Germany is 

probably the passionate desire of fine 
ScieiSe!"^ °^ minds to get away as far as possible 

from Humanism, — Materialism of 
every kind in poetry and philosophy. Many in 
their intellectual wanderings feel, as Cardinal New- 
man whom I have already quoted felt, that they 
would much rather go around Europe by sea than 
set foot on the soil of France. For France is the 
home of all that is positive, logical, mathematical, 
material. A nation that solved great questions by 
the edge of the guillotine, and then employed a 
mathematical Napoleon to carry its spirit to the 
foot of the Pyramids and up to the walls of Mos- 
cow, is not the nation of high thinkers. And a 
race that has no great spiritual poet or seer, and 
whose oratory seems always to degenerate into gas- 
conade, is best represented by its perfect prose, its 
mechanical stage, by its laboratories where men's 



WINTER 



59 



hands are blistered with acids, and ladies handle 
deadly elements in the pursuit of science and fame, 
and by the fact that it established a factory of gloves 
from human skins at Meudon and decreed in its 
Senate the existence of the Supreme Being ! 



LXVI 

Idealism, not in its metaphysical, but in its reli- 
gious and literary meaning, as opposed to Realism 
and Materialism, is the fulcrum, the 
only fulcrum, with which an Archime- the^^e^^ °* 
dean spirit can move, and lift, the 
human race. And it was this Idealism, that seemed 
to hover always around the confines of atheism in its 
efforts to grasp the shadows of its own intellectual 
creations, and which ushered in the Romanticism 
which held in happy bondage for a generation the 
choicest spirits of Germany. It was a force that 
seemed to call back the planets from wandering aim- 
lessly in space, and swing them into their proper 
grooves around the central sun of Catholicity. 
Now, this romanticism sprang undoubtedly from 
the poetic philosophy of Schelling. And what our 
age needs most — for it has certainly drifted back 
into the old lines of sensistic irreligion — is not the 
great Catholic poet (who would be certainly not 
only unappreciated but gravely misunderstood), but 
a school of writers that, commencing with Christian 
Idealism, will wean men's minds away from body- 
worship, mammon-worship, clothes-worship, plea- 
sure-worship, and, carrying the human mind once 
more towards chivalry in politics, asstheticism in 
art, idealism in literature, romanticism in fiction, 
dethrone the little god Man, and enthrone him 
amongst God's servants. 



i6o PARERGA 



LXVII 

" In vain ! in vain ! " some one cries. Man and 
Matter are the conquerors. It is an age of science, 

of retorts and alembics, laboratories 
Groil"'^''^''* and museums. And Science is the 

enemy of Idealism. It is an age of 
materialism, when the sensible things of life are of 
supreme moment, and the invisible things are un- 
recognisable! It is an age of militarism, — of great, 
grey barracks everywhere, of millions of men stand- 
ing to arms in all the barrack-squares of the world ; 
of huge floating batteries circling around the coasts 
of the world ; of cruel and inhuman taxation crush- 
ing out the energies of workers, and paralysing 
every attempt at initiative in the arts that make for 
civilisation. Idealism ? Pah ! Go to the capital 
of your Germany, — your home of Idealism and 
Poetry ; pass down under the limes in the Unter der 
Linden. Stop ! Behold this group. The central 
figure is Frederick. The four corners are filled 
with bronze figures of soldiers. The spaces are 
filled with similar bronze effigies of soldiers. Sol- 
diers everywhere. Where are your poets and phi- 
losophers now in this German land .'' Oh, yes. 
Look here ! Right behind, and under the tail of 
Frederick's horse, are two statues. Of whom ? 
Kant and Lessing ! Placed there to show how 
easily poetry and philosophy can be kicked into 
illimitable space by the iron hoofs of militarism ! 



WINTER i6i 



LXVIII 

A grim, if somewhat contemptuous comment on 
that Herbartian system of salvation by education 
that is again coming into vogue. If 
anywhere on earth education has Serb™""" °^ 
been made paramount in social and 
political economics, surely it is in Germany. 
Splendid schools, perfect equipment, trained teach- 
ers, scientific appliances, State control, discipline 
almost military in its severity, and above all, the 
^^ vielseitige Interesse'' on which Herbart laboured 
so painfully, and which should have been promoted 
in Germany above all other places by the example 
of such lofty and gifted minds ; and lo ! for all this, 
and as its final effect and growth, behold a system 
of militarism carried so far that, even in a public 
monument, the effigies of warriors are everywhere 
placed in situations of honour, and those of the 
most illustrious geniuses of the Fatherland are rele- 
gated to a contemptuous obscurity. One would be 
tempted to ask at once, where now are the ideas, 
the ideals, the devotion, — the trivium in which 
Herbart placed all his hopes? 



LXIX 

But perhaps this is not quite fair, although it is 
certainly significant. Herbart opened up the tre- 
mendous question, which certain edu- 
cationists solve in an airy manner in Deveiopmem""^ 
these days, whether education is to 
be accomplished by developing the faculties, or by 
feeding them. Or, in other words, whether educa- 



i62 PARERGA 



tion is development by Exercise or by Instruction. 
I know of absolutely no thinker of the present day 
who would not promptly answer that the whole 
essence of education consists in the exercise of the 
faculties, not in the filling-in and feeding of the 
mind through facts and data. Yet the Herbartians 
fling a decided negative athwart that stream of 
modern tendency ; and contend that the whole cur- 
riculum of studies which have for object mental 
culture should also have for object moral culture ; 
that there is no mental growth except by ideas : 
and that righteous ideas, such as will tell eventually 
for the benefit of the whole community, can be de- 
rived only from apperception — the study, through 
story, legend, and history, of the lives and deeds of 
all the great men who have left the impress of char- 
acter on human history ; and a study of nature- 
facts and nature-wonders through the eyes of 
Science. 

LXX 

I have said that it is not fair to judge of the mind 
of Germany from that group of effigies in the Unter 
der Linden. I had a better object- 
"^ ^^ ■ lesson of the German mind and char- 

acter at Nauheim, three years ago. Every one 
knows that the Nauheim baths are specifics for 
heart trouble, etc., but every one does not know 
that here in this fashionable watering-place, with its 
monster hotels, its charming villas nestling each in 
its cradle of trees, its electric lights, its baths, etc., may 
also be seen German life typical of all classes, from 
the highest to the lowest. I do not know whether 
others see things as I see them ; but probably I 
had contrasts in my mind drawn from experience of 



WINTER 163 



my own country, and it was probably those con- 
trasts that fixed the pictures and picture-lessons so 
deeply on my mind. These pictures or mental 
cartoons formed a kind of triptych, or triple repre- 
sentation, which I took to be indicative of certain 
phases of national character, and national character 
developed or created through a long course of years 
by means of education and discipline. 

LXXI 

The first thing that struck me in watching the 
ways of these people was the perfect equality that 
seemed to obtain amongst all classes ^. 

, ,. , <:r T- 1- >> • First Picture. 

m public places. Jiquality is a 
word of French revolutionary coinage. It rings 
hollow and spurious along the Boulevards. It is a 
genuine thing beyond the Rhine. For here in Nau- 
heim, as in all such places, is a Kursaal ; and in 
front of the Kursaal is a vast terrace or promenade ; 
and under shelter of a permanent awning, and lighted 
by a thousand electric arcs are some five hundred or 
six hundred tables, numbered by twenties, and each 
twenty under charge of a special waiter. Here, 
three times a day during the season, and at the cost 
of the State, a splendid band plays for the delecta- 
tion of visitors and natives ; and here, shoulder to 
shoulder with aristocratic and noble visitors from all 
parts of Europe, are the bourgeoisie and ouvriers up 
from Frankfort for a holiday. There at that little 
round metal table is a duke or earl ; and here at 
the next table are Fritz and Gretchen, Frau and 
Fraulein, eating sausage and drinking small beer. 
And there is not the slightest appearance of a sense 
of intrusion amongst these workers, — no insolent 



1 64 PARERGA 



assumption of rights, or menacing scowl or gesture : 
" I 'm as good a man as you ! " Oh, no ! The 
sense of freedom and equality has been born with 
this race. It is taken for granted. And the polite 
waiter is as courteous and assiduous about the table 
of the workman as when he takes his orders from 
" my lord ! " 

It was a magnificent human lesson ! 

LXXII 

The second picture in my triptych was this : 
On Sunday nights, in the great hall, recitals were 
given from the masters. The first recital was ex- 
clusively from Gounod. The second 

Second Picture. ^ ,,%. a i i r i 

from Wagner. At the end or the 
hall, where I sat amongst some German priests, who 
seemed to know as much about these classical pieces 
as about their Breviary Hymns, was a large crowd 
of students, each with the score and a pencil in his 
hand. It was very interesting to watch their eager, 
boyish features, lighted up with enthusiasm as they 
followed with such critical and intelligent interest 
the performers, jotting down notes, asking questions 
of each other, making comparisons, all the time in 
a quiet, polite, undemonstrative manner, so that no 
one around them was in the least degree embarrassed. 
Twice they were hushed absolutely into silence, 
dropped their pencils, and closed the sheets of music. 
It was when a young violinist stepped forward from 
the orchestra, and executed in a marvellous manner 
some study, nocturne, fantaisie, or fugue, utterly 
unknown to me. The two attendants could hardly 
carry in their arms the piles of bouquets offered si- 
lently and without an attempt at applause from the 



WINTER 165 



vast audience. There these remained piled on the 
stage, whilst the young executant went back meekly 
to his place. The whole thing was beautiful, — the 
music, the appreciation of it, the silence. I won- 
dered, was civilisation focussed here ? 



LXXIII 

Next day I got into an accustomed corner beneath 
a spreading lime to watch, and listen to, the band. 
The Instrumentalists, be it said, went _ . , . 

, , , ' ^ . Third Picture. 

through each programme as conscien- 
tiously and as fully in the morning, when they had 
only a few nodding trees, and a certain middle-aged 
Irish priest for audience, as in the afternoon, when 
several hundreds from all parts of Europe were 
gathered in silence on the veranda. I thought I 
noticed my maestro of the violin and the bouquets, 
calmly obeying the baton of the kappelmeister, as if 
he were a young novice or apprentice under momen- 
tary apprehension of dismissal. I thought if I 
were he, and possessed of such genius, 1 would 
never play but before the Grand Duke or the 
Kaiser. I was puzzled over such humility, such 
self-effacement. I questioned the young Jew who 
lent us Tauchnitz editions for a few centimes each 
afternoon. 

" Yaas," he said, "dot vhos Bull." 

" But," I said, wondering, " that young man is a 
genius, a meistersinger." 

" Yaas," he said, " zo he is ! " 

" Then," I cried, " why does n't he come over to 
London, or go to New York, and reap the rewards 
of his genius ? What is his salary here ? " 

" About eighteen schellings a week, at most a 



i66 PARERGA 



bound. The kappelmeister gets two dousand 
bounds from the Grandt Duke. He pays all the 
rest." 

" But," I said, " that young artist could earn fifty 
pounds a week in London ! " 

"Berhaps zo," he said carelessly. " Und I dere 
say he vhill goom to London yet. He is berfecting 
himself in his art ! " 

" He is perfecting himself in his art ! " The 
words ran through my ears all day, and every day, 
as I watched that young man, silently, patiently, 
" without haste, without rest," labouring after per- 
fection. And only a few weeks before, I had heard 
the kind lady who examined our children in needle- 
work exclaiming : 

"Ah! Celtic impetuosity again. There is the 
one dominant Celtic note in all our work, — to get 
it done, no matter how ; but to get it done, and take 
leave of it for ever!" 

And I also thought of certain wise sayings and 
holy maxims, spoken by deep and learned thinkers 
of the higher issues of life, of our need of aspiration 
after perfection, of our preparation for that place 
where there is no blot, nor flaw, nor stain in the 
spirits, and fore the face of Him before whom the 
stars are not pure ; and I bowed my head and was 
silent. 

LXXIV 

But here were three great object lessons. Equal- 
ity^ not a catchword of revolutionary humanism, but 
a reality, derived from the clear con- 
qua 1 y. ception that each individual was a 
child of the State, claiming his birthright, and pre- 
pared to defend, even at the cost of life, that mother- 



WINTER 167 



land which protected him. For, as I watched those 
German labourers, their strong, burly, Saxon frames, 
I remembered the charge of the Wiirtembergers at 
Sedan, and the ring of fire and iron that Moltke 
drew around the disorganised and demoralised le- 
gions of France. And I knew that if the word 
went forth, each of these young students, now ap- 
parently so engrossed in music, would fling the 
sheet aside and take up his soldier's blanket for 
the bivouac, and take down his rifle from the rack, 
and hang the violin in its place with the words, 
"Till 1 return, or — " This is genuine manliness 
and patriotism. No hysterical screaming, nor 
speech-making; no insolent demands for levelling 
up or levelling down ; no feud of class against class ; 
but the instinct and conviction that all are equal in 
the eyes of the State, — equal rights, equal duties, 
the equal claim for righteous protection, and the cor- 
responding obligation to stand shoulder to shoulder 
in defence of the commonwealth that guarantees to 
each his natural and hereditary rights. 

LXXV 

I cannot for a moment agree with the Herbar- 
tians who place the ultimate salvation of States and 
peoples in education, unless, indeed, 
they understand education in its 
broadest and widest signification, as the develop- 
ment both of moral and mental faculties. But I 
like the idea that the mind must be fed, as well as 
exercised, just as nature, in its physical processes, 
places nutriment in the first place. You may de- 
velop the mathematical mind on sines and co-sines, 
and sharpen the reasoning faculties on these whet- 



i68 PARERGA 



stones until it can split the abstrusest problems, and 
yet find in the end that you have but 

** A reasoning, self-sufficing thing. 
An intellectual all-in-all." 

Or you may develop the imagination, and stretch 
it out in illimitable fancies, and yet find but a Byron 
at the end. Or you may develop the memory, and 
produce a calculating-machine for a dime museum. 
But this is not education. I think the time may 
come when our educationists may have to hark back 
to one Herbartian idea, that the mind has to be fed 
as well as the body ; and that this process can only 
take place successfully when great thoughts, inspired 
by great examples, from man or nature, are made 
the mental pabulum of the young. 

LXXVI 

The third idea is Discipline, and discipline not of 
the schoolmaster's ferule, but self-i?nposedy through 
the sense that there can be no ulti- 
iscip ine. niate perfection except through the 

long and patient elaboration of that task or talent 
which it is given to us to perform or develop. This 
involves restraint and reserve, — restraint over im- 
pulses which, in the name of self-interest or self- 
advancement, hurry us on to the fruition of labours 
which we have not honourably accomplished ; and 
reserve, — the husbanding of resources which, too 
lavishly utilised, might lead us into intellectual 
bankruptcy, and the modest silence about ourselves 
which, even in a blatant world, is certain to be re- 
warded by an acknowledgment of whatever talents 
we possess, provided we have not irritated public 



WINTER 169 



opinion by wounding public vanity. Apart from 
its ultimate reward, modesty is a charming and use- 
ful virtue. And it is the virtue of the great. It is 
only the Pharisee that wears long phylacteries, and 
loves salutations in the market-place ; and he has 
passed down the ages as a synonym for an unclean 
platter and a whited sepulchre. 

LXXVII 

Christmas ! Actually, Christmas again ! With 
what terrific speed we are moving on, — on towards 
the immeasurable gulf of Death. ^, 

-iTTi 1 1 I cneu Fugaces, 

When we were boys, how that grey, 
old hypocrite. Time, disguised himself and played 
with us, and stretched out for us the long, long, 
summer days, which we thought would never end. 
How he accompanied us, throwing sunlight and 
flowers all the way ; and stood by us and com- 
manded, like Joshua of old, the sun to stand still 
in the heavens, and pour down his rich, warm gold, 
as we leaped the brook in the glen, and chased the 
dragon-fly, with his gorgeous panoply of gold and 
bronze, down where the yellow irises were waving 
above the cool stream ; and fished for sticklebacks 
with worms, and thought that we had made the great- 
est discovery in natural science in this century when 
we found that the little broken fragment of a twig 
at the bottom of the pellucid stream was really the 
home, the palace, the armoury, the disguise of some 
white, aquatic caterpillar. And we thought what a 
cunning little creature it was to hide itself thus! 
We did not know the infinite science and the un- 
bounded resources of the great magician. Nature ! 



170 PARERGA 



LXXVIII 

But now, now ! the old fellow has thrown off his 
disguise, and claims us no longer as playfellows, 
but as victims. He seems to have 
^* ' put the alae, the wings of Mercury on 

his feet ; and, instead of the caduceus^ he has taken 
up his scythe, and bade us prepare for the harvest. 
He slides our mornings into evenings, our days 
into days, our weeks into weeks so easily, yet so 
swiftly, that we hardly wake up except to sleep 
again ; and sleep itself is but a moment's oblivion 
between a dream and a dream. And on, on, on we 
go, swiftly, silently, irresistibly, our relentless com- 
rade and mentor and conqueror at our side, until 
suddenly we find ourselves in the rapids above the 
great gulf of the grave, and we hear the falling of 
the waters into the immeasurable abyss, and we feel 
the suction of eternity. 

LXXIX 

What then ? Well, then work, work, work ; tem- 

pus breve est, and work is the elixir of life, — the 

one thing alone that, whilst it accel- 

Work. ^ ° . ^ J .u 

erates our moments, yet sends them 
gloriously freighted to eternity. It was the wildest 
and foolishest dream to suppose that Creation ended 
on the Seventh Day. The work of creation is 
never-ending. Ohne hast^ aher ohne rasty the Ineffa- 
ble Mind that is governing the universe is ever 
evolving from new or old materials new and glori- 
ous forms, each surpassing the others in perfection 
of design, and symmetry of execution. Old and 
worn-out things are broken up and dissolved in the 
alchemy of creation ; and behold ! new forms spring 



WINTER 171 



forth, and look, and breathe, and face the Eternal, 
tingling with the sense of existence, eager to take 
their part in the colossal drama, and confident of 
their immortality. There is nothing old, nothing 
weak, nothing feeble in creation. Everything is 
young, with a sense of actual youth, or the con- 
sciousness of immortality. 

LXXX 

1 forget whether it is G. H. Lewes who says that 
the two most tremendous lines in all The Loom 
literature are those of Goethe : — °^ Time. 

** At the whirling loom of Time unawed 
I work the living mantle of God." ^ 

Lewes was a Goethe-worshipper ; but the lines are 
certainly great. God at his loom, or rather His 
glorious spirits. His angels of the universe, every- 
where throughout creation, with eyes fixed on the 
eternal archetype and design, that hangs before the 
walls of Heaven, weaving and framing, loosing and 
dissolving, plying the vast shuttles of Force and 
Matter throughout the infinite mazes of star-worlds, 
so that, if we were not happily deaf, we should be 
stunned by the thunders that reverberate everywhere 
from these stupendous operations ; and, if we were 
not happily blind, we should be stricken by the 
effulgences that blaze ever up from the molten 
masses that are flung into the perfect moulds of 
other worlds and other beings than we. 

' So schafF ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit 
Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid. 

Faust. 



172 PARERGA 



LXXXI 

And if in these harmonic, yet awful operations 
our tiny moth-life seems so insignifi- 
Vi^n.'^ ^""^ ^ cant that there should be no count of 
it ; if our existence here is but 

" a watch and a vision 
Between a sleep and a sleep," 

yet we have our little parts to perform in the econ- 
omies of creation ; and at least we can feel that we 
are in one sense greater than the mechanism of the 
universe, for that, as Pascal says, is unconscious; 
but we, at least, have the consciousness of our own 
littleness. Turn on, then, Old Time ! Put your 
hour-glass and your stellar chronometers before us ; 
wave your scythe above our heads. Do we not 
know that when the last sands have run out from 
that bellglass of yours, a Divine Hand will turn it 
over for eternity ; when your clock has struck its 
last hour, the bells of Heaven shall ring for us; and 
when your scythe has mown down the last ridge in 
the fields of God, the harvest will be gathered into 
the granaries of Heaven ? 



LXXXII 

But it is Christmas, — Christmas Night. The 
clock on my mantel-piece peals out ten ; and there is 
_ . „ deep silence over all things. The last 

Christmas Eve. .,/ ^ , , • a cc r^ j 

Village-Stragglers have said, Good- 
night" and gone to their homes. The last footstep 
has sounded, echoed, and died along the street. I 
feel absolutely alone, here by my fireside. The great 



WINTER 173 



Christmas candle, a yard in length and two inches 
in diameter, is burning silently in the next room, 
and casting down a flickering flame on the glistening 
holly with its scarlet berries beneath. I remain up, 
for 1 have to say the midnight mass at the convent, 
preparatory to my two masses in the morning ; and, 
as I watch the fire in the delicious, but almost op- 
pressive silence, it seems to me that all the delight- 
ful ghosts, which that intense and realistic spiritualist 
called Literature has created, come in and walk in 
solemn procession before my eyes. I watch them 
all tenderly, lovingly, as they pass by and look at 
me with the wistful sadness of eternity in their eyes, 
until the convent bell rings out at a quarter to 
twelve; and I pass out into the night. 

LXXXIII 

It was a clear, starlit night, which did not quite 
show all its splendours, until I had gone out from 
the streets. For the lamps were left . 

alight by the men in charge ; and ^ "^^ 

from every house, even the humblest, the tall 
Christmas candle, placed in the window, shed a 
yellow light across the pathways. But the moment 
I got beyond the range of the houses, and their 
black roofs and gables no longer cut oflF large por- 
tions of the sky, the full splendours of a winter 
firmament burst upon my sight. It was no novelty, 
for I flatter myself I have quite an intimate, almost 
hand-shaking acquaintance with these nocturnal 
beauties, which so lavishly squander their splen- 
dours on a world which heeds them not. It makes 
one smile to hear that this universe was made for 
man ; whilst the petty creature goes back to his 



174 PARERGA 



blind bed, exactly when the firmament unrolls Its 
magnificence and displays all the silent wonders, all 
the ineffable radiances that it keeps cloaked and 
hooded by the day. Nevertheless, although familiar 
to me, I am always startled when the effulgence 
suddenly bursts upon me. These constellations 
seem to smite one with their splendours. Every 
moment you imagine you can hear the sounds that 
must underlie their awful operations. Jewels of the 
sky, set in its black mourning pall ; lamps in the 
City of God ; whatever figures of speech you use 
fade into insignificance before the revelations of 
science, — suns, infinite suns, sunk in the depths 
of illimitable space. 



LXXXIV 

The Dragon^ folding his coils as usual around 
the Little Bear, was due north ; and a little to the 

northwest, and just on the verge of 
tTons.^°"'*'"^' the horizon, the beautiful Vega of the 

Lyre was barely visible. The tail 
of the Great Bear hung down into the Northern 
Seas, pointing to the invisible Arcturus ; and the 
hunting-dogs of Bootes and the giant Hercules were 
asleep beneath the cold rim of frozen Arctic seas. 
Directly east, but low down, one could hardly see 
the sickle of Leo, were it not for the brilliant jewel, 
ReguluSy in its handle ; and in the east too. Cancer 
and Hydra intervening, the Gemini looked down on 
Procyon, the great glowing eye in the Canis Minor. 
In the southeast Canis Major was just rising ; Sirius, 
the peerless one, was spitting out his blue and green 
and yellow flames right and left, and the triple 
stars that form the jewelled belt of Orion pointed 



WINTER 175 



steadily towards him, whilst they seemed to light up 
all the darkness around them ; and higher up the 
net of the Pleiades was strung with the white pearls 
of its six great stars, and the innumerable aiglets of 
its other star-sprays. In the southwest, Cetus the 
whale was spouting his glories above the seas. Mira 
" the wonderful," the variable one, had set her lights 
in honour of the night. Capella in Auriga was almost 
in the zenith ; Perseus with the demon-star, Algol, 
was watching the fettered Andromeda ; and the four- 
wheeled chariot of the winged Pegasus seemed 
toppling down into the west. 



LXXXV 

Three thousand four hundred years ago, these 
glories seem first to have attracted the eye of man, 
who, notwithstanding the Greek de- 
rivation of his name, seems more in- '^}^%, ^^,^^^ 

' at Bethlehem. 

clmed to fix his gaze on the earth, 
than upon the sky. Later on, holy Job asked : 
"Who hath resisted Him, and hath peace? who 
shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars 
thereof tremble. Who alone spreadeth out the 
heavens, and walketh upon the waves of the sea. 
Who maketh Arcturus, and Orion, and the Hyades, 
and the inner parts of the south. Who doth things 
great and incomprehensible and wonderful, of which 
there is no number." And the greatest, most 
incomprehensible, most wonderful of all things 
wrought by Omnipotence was assuredly that mighty 
mystery which we commemorate to-night, and on 
which, nineteen centuries ago, those same constella- 
tions that are now blazing in the heavens looked 
down and trembled, as the angels clove their way 



176 PARERGA 



between them, and made them sing together the 
praises of the Most High. It was a strange and 
terrible thought — that those stars looked down on 
Bethlehem. They saw and wondered, and were 
still ; and abyss called out to abyss, as all the 
heavens told the glory of God, and the firmament 
revealed His wonders. 



Lxxxvi y 

And then came the tremendous contrast ! From 
under that blazing firmament into the little chapel I 

came, with its painted ceiling and 
Ni'othe^r"'^ ^i"^^ human decorations. I passed 

the crib, as I came to the altar, and 
saw — the Child and His Mother I And then, after 
the jubilant chorus of the Gloria in Excehis had died 
out, came the ever sweet, ever tender words of the 
Adeste. It was sudden, and striking — the contrast 
between the universe of suns and this little chapel, 
— between Omnipotence guiding that vast and 
awful procession of worlds outside and the same 
Omnipotence hiding here under the most helpless 
of all forms. But these things touched the intellect. 
The moment came, when the flood-gates of emotion 
were suddenly opened ; and I had to suspend for 
a moment the onward course of the divine sacri- 
fice. It was at the awful words : 



Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, 

Gestant puellce viscera. 
God of God, Light of all Light, 
The womb of a child is bearing. 

That word " puella," a little girl, placed there in 
literal opposition, or rather real conjunction with 



WINTER 177 



Omnipotence, choked me. The sudden descent of 
the Immense, the Almighty One, into the feeble and 
tender embraces of a child-mother, was too over- 
whelming. It is the confutation of atheism, the 
mockery of human pride, the suspension of inexor- 
able law in favour of a divine manifestation of love 



all at oncey 



LXXXVII 



And lo ! as Christmas departs, the days seem 
suddenly to open up ; and though the sun seems to 
linger yet below the horizon in the Days 
morning, he does not hasten towards Lengthening, 
his setting. And the old adage comes true : 

*♦ As the day lengthens. 
The cold strengthens." 

For now, we have had a tremendous fall of snow, 
a biting blizzard, that whitened all the air and then 
passed away leaving its feathery deposit thick upon 
the ground. Down came a heavy frost upon this, 
hardening and annealing and enamelling it, until 
the nerves of the young tingled with the excitement 
of prospective skating, and the old and feeble 
huddled with shrinking shoulders near their fires. 
I have a little oil-painting that exactly reproduces 
the scene, — bare trees, loaded with their pretty 
white burden, a misty atmosphere through which 
the pink and contracted and feeble sun strives in 
vain to shine, and the long avenues of forest glades, 
where the prints of human feet are visible. And 
here is a pen-picture of the same from a modern 
Italian poet : — 



178 PARERGA 



** Una caligin bianca 
Empie I'aer dormente, e si confonde 
Col pian nevato all' orrizente estremo. 
Tenue, rosseggia e stanca 
Del sol la ruota, e fra i vapor s'asconde. 
Com' occhio uman di sue palpebre Scemo, 
E non augel, non aura in fra le piante, 
Non canto di fanciulla, o Viandante." 

"A whitish darkness fills the sleeping air, and 
mingles with the plain even to the extreme hori- 
zon. Weak, and rosy and small, the sun seems to 
hide in the vapour, like a human eye without a lid. 
No bird, no breeze stirs amongst the plants ; nor is 
heard voice of maiden or wayfarer." 

LXXXVIII 

I regret to have to report to my readers that 

Ju, the less attractive, but stronger-minded of my 

two kittens, has developed into a 

ep omaniac. ^^^^^^^^ kleptomaniac ; and that 

Charlie is beginning to suffer from a mild attack of 
megalomania. I had to send away Ju's mother, 
on account of her incorrigible propensity to put 
her whiskers in my cream-ewer and taste my butter 
before I had tasted it myself. And now the 
dreadful law of heredity seems to obtain in her filial 
relative, and the shameful propensity seems to have 
been handed down with interest. She appears also 
to have a decided habit of breaking up fish-bones, 
and leaving them in all conditions of debris on my 
carpet; and as no venerable old maid (I speak with 
the deepest reverence of a class whom I really ven- 
erate) has such a horror for untidiness as I have, 
I have been obliged to punish Ju, which I am sorry 
to say she resented with all the pertinacity and inso- 



WINTER 179 



lence of the modern spirit. She did not protest 
except by repeated violations of the rights of prop- 
erty ; and by a reproachful and argumentative look 
in her green eyes, which was eloquent beyond 
words. To-day, after having sundry things thrown 
after her by way of protest and punishment for her 
attacks on the privacy of my breakfast table, she 
took her place on my hassock near the fire, and 
said with her eyes : — 

LXXXIX 

"You object, it appears, to my assuming any 
rights over your breakfast table ? " 

" Certainly," I replied. " My housekeeper tells 
me that you are actually overfed in the kitchen ; 
and I can testify from personal ob- 
servation that the house is overrun 
with mice." 

" Mice ? " she said, turning up her little nose, 
" Mice .'' I hope I am beyond all that ! " 

"I remember a time," I said, "when you made 
yourself beastly sick with a mouse, or at least, a 
portion of one." 

"That was in my infancy, or adolescence," she 
said. " I trust I am beyond all that now ! " 

"Oh, I see," I replied. "You have advanced 
as far as cream and lemon sole just now ? " 

" Quite so ! " she said, without winking an eye. 

" Well, I object," 1 said emphatically. " I sup- 
pose in the strange evolution of things we are com- 
ing to that, but I am not going to anticipate ! " 

" What can you do ? " she said saucily. " I ad- 
mit that you are the stronger ; but I have science 
and cunning on my side ! " 



i8o PARERGA 



" I can suppress both at once ! " I said. " And 
what is more, I shall, if they are unduly exercised ! " 

" But how, how ? " she said saucily. 

" Well, first of all," I replied, " there are at least 
forty executioners, in the shape of small boys, just 
now at school, but shortly to be liberated ; and 
there 's an extremely convenient pool of deep, stag- 
nant water just a few yards off near the bridge — " 

"Pah!" she said. "You daren't," or "You 
durstn't," I am not sure which. Ju is rather a 
prh'ieuse. 

" Why, might I ask ? " 

" Because you profess to be opposed to capital 
punishment," she said. " And you are aware that, 
in the comity of nations, the whole tendency is 
towards its aboHtion." 

" That is for human, not for feline animals," I 
replied, although thunderstruck at her mode of 
argumentation. I thought she smiled sarcastically. 

" These distinctions are out of date," she said 
scornfully. " The advanced science of the day has 
put an end to the old, unscientific, and illiberal dis- 
tribution of the animal kingdom. Charles Darwin 
and Edward Clodd and Professors Huxley and 
Clifford have rearranged these things on a more 
scientific basis." 

" I see you have been reading books, instead 
of minding the business for which you were created 
— that is, keeping rats and mice out of this estab- 
lishment," I said. "Here's the cause of all the 
trouble of the world, — the general mixing-up of all 
classes, grades, species, genera, in one hodge-podge, 
with the schoolmaster's ferule over them." 

" I am fully prepared for that outburst," she 
cried bitterly. In fact, her voice was raised almost 
into a caterwaul. 



WINTER 



" You believe that education belongs to a class, 
and is the privilege of a few. We maintain that 
education is the prerogative of all created things — " 

" To teach them to steal cream and fish-bones ? " 
I replied. 

I thought the sarcasm would have killed her. 
She only smiled. It did not raise a hair on her 
soft fur. 

" There 's no question of stealing where there are 
rights," she said. 

" Of course not," I said ; " but where do the 
rights come in ? " 

"Precisely," she replied; "where do your rights 
come in ? " 

This was a stunner. I did not want to talk the- 
ology with a mere kitten, although 1 had no objec- 
tion to talk political economy. I thought I 'd cut 
the matter short. 

" My rights come in here," I said, — "that, if I 
catch your whiskers in my cream-ewer again, or see 
so much as an infinitesimal atom of fish-bone on 
the floor, there is not an article in the room that I 
won't turn into a missle of destruction." 

" Of course," she said. " Might is right, is it 
not? That's Carlylese philosophy." 

" All that I know is," I replied, " that you are a 
feline Radical and Socialist. You are bad enough 
in yourself, and you are corrupting the morals of 
that innocent and angelic Lu." 

" Morals ? " she said ; " morals ? That 's more 
of your priestcraft — " 

I was about to demolish her with a heavy dic- 
tionary, but she glided away to a safe distance. 

" I meant nothing personal," she said ; " but 
there 's no such thing as morals. These are anti- 



i82 PARERGA 



quated terms. There's instinct; and I believe you 
superior animals affect to have something superior 
to instinct which you call ' reason,* but which, if we 
are to judge by results, is a most fallible and unreli- 
able guide. But ' morals,' * morals ' ! — all morality 
is simply resolvable into following your instincts, 
passions, desires. Why should Nature implant 
them in us but to help us to gratify them ? " 

" Look here, pussy," I replied ; " you should 
have been head kitten to Madame Warens and her 
protege, long ago by the Lake of Geneva. You 
are an anachronism. You are born out of time. 
You are altogether too astute, too logical, for this 
generation." 

" By no means," said Ju, bridling up at the in- 
tended sarcasm. " There never was a time when 
our race " — with what pride she uttered the words ! 

— "had so many opportunities for self-improvement 
or self-advancement as at present. The larger hu- 
manitarian ideas that obtain in all higher circles, and 
which, I am sorry to say, you are too retrograde 
and reactionary to adopt, are moving us onward and 
upward towards ' some far-off, divine event,' when 
we shall evolve into — " 

Ju's eloquence failed her here. She could not 
for a moment recollect the form of the final evolu- 
tion of her species. She instantly, with unerring 
feminine tact, harked back. 

"When, in the most advanced circles of society," 
she continued grandly, " our interests are not only 
studied and considered, but considered paramount, 

— considered paramount," she repeated ; " when 
great ladies take us up, and place us in positions of 
dignity and comfort far beyond those allotted to 
mere human infants ; when we have specialists set 



WINTER 183 



apart for our physical complaints, and footmen are 
deputed to wait upon us ; when scientists have dis- 
covered that we have souls as well as you; and when 
we are interred with all honours, and with more 
genuine tears of sorrow than are lavished on your 
species ; and when, in the words of a certain vulgar 
song of yours, our lady friends — I use the word 
advisedly — whisper in the ears of deceased felines, 
whilst their hot tears rain down on the beautiful fur, 
*Not Adieu, dear little kitten,' but*Au revoir — '" 

" Scat ! " I cried, as I flung an imperial dictionary 
at her. She dodged it, of course. At a safe dis- 
tance she arched her back and stiffened her tail. 

" Ps — s — st ! " she cried, as she made for the 
door. " Why did n't you throw one of your own 
books ? It would have been a more dangerous 
because a heavier missile." 



XC 

We made it up, however. You must make up 
everything nowadays. It is an age of compromise 
all around. The old landmarks are ^ 

d« ji TT • 1 r Compromise, 

isappeanng rapidly. Universal suf- 
frage is in the air. Evolution is progressing by 
leaps and bounds. The animal creation will have 
developed into man, with rights of voting and meet- 
ing, long before man has put on the wings of an 
archangel. So I have made it up with Ju ; and, in 
return, Ju has informed me that Charlie has had a 
bad attack of megalomania. It arose from the fact 
that he was very unwisely patted on the head by 
the eight-buttoned glove of a lady who had come 
into the garden. Charlie, who has imbibed Com- 
munistic ideas from the arch-conspirator Ju, is quite 



i84 PARERGA 



prepared to be friendly with every one. I have no 
doubt whatsoever that he would shake hands with 
a burglar, and probably show him over the premises. 
As to his master's rights, he acknowledges nothing 
of the kind. The Zeitgeist is on him,— the spirit 
of the age, the spirit of insurgence and independ- 
ence, and, alas ! also the spirit of idleness and self- 
indulgence. Charlie, once obedient and respectful, 
now turns away his head when summoned. He 
affects not to hear, and assumes a certain stolidity 
of aspect, which is his canine way of showing inde- 
pendence of spirit. Ladies should not pat little 
puppies on the head with eight-button gloves. 



part III 

SPRING 



SPRING 

Section I 

I 

It is January the 20th ; and yet I call it Spring, 
because it is Spring. Old Winter may come back 
yet, and pay us a complimentary 
visit; but so far, for the last fort- spS^^'' °^ 
night he, with his icy beard and 
rheumy eyes and icicled hair, has vanished with the 
holly and ivy of Christmastide. And Spring, the 
delectable queen and fay and fairy, has already sent 
her av ant-couriers far and wide across the barren 
but yearning land; and the pretty things that hid 
away in silence from the rude embraces of Boreas 
are now shyly peeping up — crocus and purple 
primula, and snowdrop and daisy, and look towards 
the pallid and pinkish sun, as if to ask when their 
mother and mistress shall come. And the lambs 
are out in the fields, frisking and leaping in all the 
splendid joyance of youth, sometimes straying away 
in the exuberance of life and spirits from their 
mothers; but each infallibly finding its own when 
the maternal bleat calls back the truant. How 
grave and solemn are those sheep-mothers, who two 
years ago were riotous and irresponsible lambkins. 

" Ob, Gioventu ! 
Oh, Primavera, gioventu delP anno. 
Oby Gioventu, primavera delta vita ! ' ' 



PARERGA 



II 

I stood yesterday on the highest attainable sum- 
mit of Kilcolman Castle. It is barely three miles 
north-northwest of this village, and 

Spenser. i , ° r 

seems but a short, gray stump or an 
ancient keep, or frontier castle, perched above a 
brown bog, and looking white in sunshine, black 
against the dark-blue of the neighbouring hills. I 
pulled aside the iron gate that leads into a kind of 
basement story, where also is the donjon or keep, 
an apparently indispensable appanage to these old 
castles, with walls six feet thick, and barely lighted 
through a thin slit, from which the huge walls open 
inwards. A narrow stone winding-stair leads to the 
first story, which is now but a grassy sward ; and a 
further but narrower stair leads upward to the sum- 
mit of the castle. Thence you can see five coun- 
ties — from the Commeragh range in Waterford to 
the far mountain chains of Kerry. The Galtees 
seem to frown over your head ; and the lordly 
Shannon is a gleam of glory on the horizon. Here 
Spenser, Secretary to the English Deputy, resided 
many years, in the enjoyment of three thousand 
acres of land confiscated from the Earl of Desmond. 
And here he managed to combine these two most 
dissimilar callings, — poet of the " Faerie Queene," 
and cold but ruthless exterminator. 

Ill 

Here the Queen's favourite. Sir Walter Raleigh, 

came, after having circumnavigated the globe, and 

^ , ^ brought potatoes and tobacco into 

A Poet's Grave, t i j u • l • l o 

Ireland ; here m his honour bpenser 
composed his welcome : " Colin Clout 's come home 



SPRING 



again " ; here, in loyal fealty to his Irish wife, the 
poet wrote his magnificent " Epithalamium " ; and 
here, as a reward for his ruthless policy towards the 
native Irish, was the castle burned down remorse- 
lessly, and here his infant child, notwithstanding 
the heroism of the rapparees, was burned to death. 
Over there in London, the great poet, the thorough 
politician and sectary, died a pauper in King Street, 
and — was buried in Westminster Abbey. He died 
of actual want, in abject penury ; yet he had more 
than royal obsequies. For his brother poets gath- 
ered around his remains, and each in turn flung into 
the open grave the ode he had composed on the 
gentle poet, and the pen with which it was written — 
an honour greater than fifty salvoes of artillery, or 
the purchased panegyric of some popular orator. 
And if that curious phantom called Shakspeare was 
there, and flung his sonnet and pen on the coflin, 
did the dead man, I wonder, shed tears '^. 



IV 

What a terrible martyrology is that of genius ! 
For one Tennyson or Browning, dying calmly of 
old age, with all its attendant hon- 

\ ^ • II ,1 i-rA Martyroloey. 

ours, what a grim holocaust has lire 
demanded of so many others, equally dear to the 
fickle and inconstant Muses ! Genius at the best 
is a tragic thing. Nature, when she does bring 
forth a rare spirit, should have it wrapped in cotton 
wool, and sequestered, as far as possible, from the 
rougher elements of daily existence. Except alone 
for purposes of study, it should be kept far from 
its kind ; or allowed only to associate with children, 
or the meek and gentle elders, who have the gravity 



190 PARERGA 



of eternity imprinted on heart as on features; and 
the charity of experience manifested in their daily 
lives. But genius cast amidst a rude, boisterous, 
tumultuous world, full of animalism and passion, 
and riotous in all the insurgency of its radiant ig- 
norance, is like an Agnes or a Polycarp in the 
Coliseum, or a Dante sinking amid the circles of 
Hell. And when, after the fierce buffetings of life, 
it sinks into the grave, one can almost hear the 
verdict paraphrased by the French cynic : 

" Le bruit court que Pison est mort. C'est une grande 
perte. C'etoit un homme de bien ; et qui meritoit une 
plus longue vie. II avoit de I'esprit et de I'agrement ; de 
la fermete et du courage. II etoit sur, genereux, fidele ! 
Ajoutez — pourvu qu'il soit mort." 



Who was Jacinto Verdaguer ? I have heard that 
he was born in Barcelona in 1845 > ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ chap- 
lain to a ship, the "Ciudad Candal"; 
^^ ' that he had one at least of Johnson's 

author-evils, — a patron. Marquis de Comillas ; that 
he wrote an epic, " The Atlantide," in which the 
greatest passages are : " The Burning of the Pyre- 
nees " ; "The Garden of the Hesperides"; "The 
Cataract" ; " The Engulfment." It is also said that 
he had trials — fa va sans dire ; that he was accused 
of certain unpleasant things of which a poet, and 
above all a priest-poet, should not be guilty ; that 
he bore all with philosophical serenity; that he 
wrote "Idylls and Mystic Songs"; "Patria"; 
"Songs of Montferrat"; "Religious Songs for the 
People"; " Dreams of St. John "; "Jesus, Child"; 



SPRING 19] 



"Flowers of Mary"; another epic, " Canigou." 
Died in June, 1902, aged 57. Buried with public 
honours ! Alas ! Were it not better for him to have 
been a village cure; never to have written anything 
but his little prone for Sunday morning ; and to have 
died amidst the sobs of his people, and had his 
requiem chanted by his village choir? 

But who was Jacinto Verdaguer ? His fame has 
been circumscribed and local. Was it worth the 
cost? 

VI 

What a pathos underlies those words — a failed 
life, une vie manque e ! I struck across the expression 
a few evenings ago in connection with „ ^ 

TT 1 Ti J- J r J- • Herder. 

Herder. He died or disappointment, 
of a broken heart, of a failed life. I had been think- 
ing of him as a colossus, as a genius who stood like 
Dante's tower, 

** Full square to all the winds that blow." 

I only saw him as he appeared to Goethe that even- 
ing in the hotel at Strasburg, where he had gone 
for surgical help for his eyes, — a tall, commanding 
figure, with high, broad forehead, and eyes that, even 
through the inflammation which affected them, were 
yet piercing; hair curled and dressed; clad in strict, 
clerical costume, black coat, and a long silk cloak 
flung gracefully over it. He was but twenty-seven 
years old at the time ; and as he came down the 
grand staircase of the hotel, probably feeling his way 
owing to his imperfect sight, there leaped up the 
stairs against him a young, light, Olympian figure, 
tall and masculine, with great eyes that glowed with 



192 



PARERGA 



genius and animation. With the ease and assurance 
of a student, this young fellow accosted the senior 
and venerable figure that was before him. It was 
the beginning of the life-long friendship — the mu- 
tual respect never broken by manly criticism ; and 
the mutual assistance always given freely and with- 
out any sense of recompense — between Goethe and 
Herder. 

VII 

Now, Herder died at the age of fifty-six ; and 

during those brief years he was not only leading 

preacher at Weimar, but such a zeal- 

A Colossal Work. '^ j-jr-i_i^j^- 

ous and indefatigable student in poe- 
try and philosophy that one stands amazed at the 
prodigious amount of work he accumulated during 
the short period allowed him on this planet. There 
was no national literature existent at the time with 
which he was not perfectly familiar, — Sanskrit, Per- 
sian, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Roman, Moorish, 
Spanish. He had studied the folk-lore of the world 
from Lapland love-songs to Scotch drinking-songs ; 
from a wild Norse scald to some voluptuous and 
erotic ballad sung in the wild places of Sicily. Then, 
passing from poetry to her more austere sister Phi- 
losophy, he projected in his late manhood a " Phi- 
losophy of the History of Humanity " in twenty-five 
books. Of these, he had completed twenty before 
he was called away ; and these are marked by a learn- 
ing, a synthetic power, a minute analysis and dis- 
criminating force, and a solemn eloquence that make 
it ever a matter of surprise that, whilst Gibbon's 
turgid pages are so much prized, this greater and 
more original book has been suffered to pass into 
oblivion. 



SPRING 193 



VIII 

But, nevertheless, the question will arise, why- 
Herder died in anguish with such a fatal verdict 
upon his lips. It cannot be said that , 

I ^ ^ • ^ J J • ^-c Not Popular. 

he was unappreciated during lire. 
The great literary luminaries, Goethe, Schiller, 
Wieland, seemed to revolve around him as a central 
sun. All that was brightest and most intellectual 
in Weimar, the spiritual capital of Germany, hung 
upon his lips when he preached. His orthodoxy 
was slightly suspected, as he seemed to lean towards 
a mild form of pantheism, and was a professed ad- 
mirer of Spinoza. But this will not account for his 
acute disappointment with life. These are the minor 
worries from which no career is safe. Can we search 
for and find the cause of his ultimate despair in the 
fact that he was a social failure, probably owing to 
the concomitant irritability of genius? He was not 
a popular man. He was too great to be merely 
popular. But he was also aggressive, and self- 
assertive. His dearest friends complained of this. 
He was the German equivalent of Carlyle. "The 
man," says Wieland, "is like an electric cloud. 
From a distance the meteor has a splendid effect ; 

but may the d have such a meteor hanging 

over his head ! I would like to have a dozen 
Pyrenees between him and me ! " 

The verdicts of Spencer, Mill, etc., on Carlyle ! 



194 



PARERGA 



IX 

One excellent lesson he taught his countrymen. 
He took them aside from their barren admiration 

of poetic form, and bade them look 
Thought ^°^ "great ideas." It is quite true 

that either rhythm or metre is at 
least a useful, if not essential, element in poetry; 
but in our degenerate days, when we have descended 
so far from the sublime spirit of ancient master- 
pieces, we have rushed into the heresy of sacrificing 
everything to mere form. Hence a mere jingle of 
words, strung together like nursery-rhymes, has 
often assumed the position in public estimation that 
should be occupied only by those sublime and in- 
tangible ideas that lift humanity above its common- 
places, and place it on the summit of the everlasting 
hills. It is quite true that perfect form, as a vehicle 
of thought, has not only a charm in itself, but also 
the vast utility of conveying in sweet and resonant 
language whatever we may have to communicate to 
the world. But no form, however perfect, is more 
than an empty, sounding shell, if the living idea is 
not there. For words are but the expression of 
ideas ; and if the ideas be not great, the word is but 
a foolish and futile sound. Herder seemed to have 
been thoroughly interpenetrated with this great prin- 
ciple. His last words were : 

" Give me a great thought before I die! " 

X 

We have a very striking example of this in the 

greatest of our contemporary poets, 

Algernon Charles Swinburne, whose 

seventieth birthday is being celebrated as I write. 



SPRING 



^95 



Swinburne is the supreme melodist of the language; 
the magician who makes music, as of Heaven, out 
of the discordant elements of the English tongue ; 
the master of alliteration ; the artist of antitheses ; 
and the skilful portrayer of subtle and suggestive 
passion. He is our modern Greek. Where Keats, 
who built his Greek epics out of Plutarch and 
Spenser, taking his matter from the former, and his 
form from the latter, conspicuously but gloriously 
failed ; where Landor fell short of Greek ideals and 
expression, although by some he was compared to 
Plato and Theocritus, Swinburne has succeeded. 
Atalanta in Calydon is the most perfect reproduc- 
tion in modern times of the Greek spirit, Grecian 
thought, Greek dramatic force; and is probably the 
only modern exemplar to those uninitiated in Greek 
poetry of what the Greek spirit of art and the 
drama could produce. Why, then, is this harmo- 
nist, in an age of music ; this melodist, in the age 
which has glorified Tennyson for his singing power; 
this Greek of Greeks, — so neglected in our age 
that his very name seems to be forgotten ? The 
simple, quiet man, living over there with Watts- 
Dunton in Putney, so timid that he drops his hat 
in the presence of ladies ; so kind that he fills his 
pockets on every walk with sweetmeats for children ; 
why is he unknown, or only known, as the preacher 
of the sensuous and pagan life ? 

XI 

And the answer comes promptly, because he has 
been the preacher of sensuous paganism ; and be- 
cause he has given no message to his 
generation. The modern world, which 
tolerates Ibsen's realisms, and throngs the theatres 



196 PARERGA 



to see certain modern society dramas that seem to 
have escaped, as if by miracle, the censure of the 
Lord Chamberlain and the Police Commissioners, 
retains the Christian verdict delivered on Mr. Swin- 
burne's poems in pre-pagan times. Forty years ago 
it was dogmatically decided that Mr. Swinburne 
should not be read. His poetry had too much of 
the atmosphere of Paphos for the public taste of 
those times. Public taste has changed, alas ! not 
for the better; but public opinion, like a judge's 
sentence, seems unalterable. The verdicts passed 
by the tribunals of half a century ago remain ; and 
it is tacitly taken for granted that Mr. Swinburne's 
poems are, at least, virginibus puerisque^ unreadable. 
A few of his verses have escaped through the 
meshes of the anathema, as a singing bird will find 
his way through the meshes of a net; but all the 
rest is marked with the red and ochre of an auto- 
da-fe. Mr. Swinburne's poems are in quarantine. 
It is doubtful now if he ever can receive a bill of 
health. 

XII 

Yet that magnificent chorus in Atalanta^ " Before 
the beginning of years," and the still more magnifi- 
cent chorus on the Death of Mele- 
Cd'ydon '" ^S^^ would tempt many more curious 

than careful to break the regulations 
of the health-office to get at the tainted beauties of 
other works. And they are not all tainted. There 
are a great many Swinburnian poems, unexcelled 
for music and rhythm, that may be read by any one. 
There are just two which, I think, are incomparable; 
and which may be read by those who still dread 
the yellow flag. The first is one of the finest ele- 



SPRING 197 



gies in the language, — I do not exclude " Lycidas " 
or " Thyrsis." I do not include " Adonais," which 
is a tragedy rather than an elegy ; and which seems 
to stand supreme and alone in poetry. It is the 
Elegy on the death of Barry Cornwall, commenc- 
ing with the well-known lines : 

*' In the garden of death, where the singers whose names are 
deathless. 
One with another make music unheard of men." 

The other is the poem named " Child Laughter," 
a perfect piece of melody and purity of conception. 
It is in those lyrics that Mr. Swinburne's art is 
best manifested, as it is by his short lyrical notes 
that the music of Tennyson will be carried to the 
ears of posterity. Nature is greater than Art ; and 
the ponderous efforts after great achievements in 
epic or drama are seldom so well appreciated as 
the spontaneous music that wells from the poetic 
heart in its moments of inspiration. And, above 
all in imitations of the antique, there is the certain 
tendency to miss its aerial lightness and softness 
of touch, and to degenerate into a lumbering and 
stiff-mannered style. But our lyrical poetry is 
always graceful, because generally unencumbered 
save by a single thought. 

XIII 

A thought will here occur — why should our 
modern poets imitate so servilely the ancient mas- 
terpieces that even in the exact forms 
of Odes and Choruses they feel Stion. 
bound to copy their originals? It 
is quite reasonable that in sculpture the antique 



PARERGA 



forms should be studied and even copied, because 
that is a fixed art, with stereotyped rules and prin- 
ciples that change not with years or manners, but 
remain as archetypal perfections unto all time. But 
poetry is the interpretation not of "the human 
form divine," but of something greater, namely, 
of all the moods and types, of all the thoughts 
and sensations, of all the passions and desires that 
sway or govern the human soul. And as these 
are as multiform and intense as the subjectivism 
of each individual allows, varying from the purely 
sensistic emotions of the hind up to the seraphic 
exaltation of the mystic, poetry as their interpre- 
tation must assume their forms, and break into as 
many outer shapes as human energy and invention 
can devise. Hence, we find modern poets straining 
ever and ever after new forms of verse ; and it is a 
distinct triumph when some daring writer breaks 
away from consecrated forms, and dares to assume 
an originality that first paralyses by its audacity, 
and then, perhaps after many years, becomes the 
model, and its issue the classic to a new generation. 
It seems, then, a great mistake in modern writers 
to copy so servilely the great poetic masterpieces 
of Greece. Autres temps, autres mceurs ! The ideas 
of one age are not the ideas of another. A great 
gulf yawns between the centuries, wherein are buried 
the religions, the cults, the manners and the passions 
of the past. Each century has its own record ; each 
age, its characteristics ; each race, its peculiar genius 
and tastes ; and nothing is gained, but everything 
is lost by a slavish subservience to traditions. 
Shakspeare is great, because he broke away from 
the Unities, and dared to be original. Milton's 
Samson, admittedly the most perfect adaptation of 



SPRING 199 



the Greek drama to Jewish ideals, is that one of 
his works which is least read. In France, Racine 
and Corneille retain the name of classics, but classics 
on the shelves. No modern Frenchman would 
tolerate their interminable speeches. In England, 
Talfourd's Ion is now unheard of; Tennyson's 
abortive dramas are waste paper. But lines from 
immortal lyrics, like the choruses in Atalanta in 
Calydon^ and the songs from the Princess lilt on every 
tongue. And the little drama Maud^ the author's 
favourite, shall ever be a favourite with the public, 
because it is un-Greek, un-Roman, un-classic in 
frame and form ; because it is thoroughly English 
and modern, and the best expression of the Time- 
Spirit in the latter half of the nineteenth century. 
Hence, it was the greatest pity that Mr. Swin- 
burne, who probably was as conversant with modern 
ideas and their trend towards pessimism and prog- 
ress, and all the possibilities of poetry that lie 
hidden beneath the anguish of a too self-conscious 
age, should have elected to go back to the simple 
realism of Greek thought and Greek feeling, where 
there was absolutely no room for the play of that 
subjectivism which may be misleading in philosophy, 
but which certainly forms the central attractiveness 
in most of the emotional poetry of the Victorian era. 
{Night of October l^.) 

XIV 

I do not know whether it is our Oriental origin that 
makes us think not only lightly, but lovingly of 
death ; but it is quite certain that we 
cannot view it with all the attendant Dfgnu^'*^ 
horrors with which the modern mate- 
rialistic imagination surrounds it; nor yet with that 



200 PARERGA 



mute despair as of an inevitable event in the resist- 
less march of Nature. We do not weave garlands 
of flowers through his naked ribs ; nor wreathe his 
bony head with chaplets. But we like to think of 
dying with dignity, — of passing away, like the 
legendary king, surrounded by weeping queens, and 
launching out into the great deep without fear or 
terror of what shall hap to us there. And hence, 
we like every word that assures us of immortality, 
and that lends to our last great act on the stage 
of life something that will redeem our bodily indig- 
nities in the grave. And I like these solemn 
words, that remind one of the calm nobility of 
Socrates : 

" The same year calls, and one goes hence with another. 

And men sit sad that were glad for their sweet song's sake. 
The same year beckons, and elder with younger brother 

Takes mutely the cup from his hands that we. all shall take." 

" Takes mutely ! " Quite so. Even the grim 
executioner, like him who handed the hemlock to 
Socrates, must drop a tear over his victim. 



XV 

The other poem is a child-poem ; for it may sur- 
prise some to be told that Mr. Swinburne is the 
children's poet par excellence. Is 
oem. ^.j^g^g j^Q^. j-j^g sound of bclls and 

laughter in these well-known lines ? 

" All the bells of heaven may ring. 
All the birds of heaven may sing ! 
All the wells on earth may spring. 
All the winds on earth may bring 
All sweet sounds together. 



SPRING 



Sweeter far than all things heard. 
Hand of harper, tone of bird. 
Sounds of woods at sundawn stirred. 
Welling waters' winsome word. 

Wind in warm, wan weather," 
etc., etc. 



and in this 



" 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' 
No glory that ever was shed 
From the crowning star of the seven 
That crown the north-world's head, 

" No word that ever was spoken 
Of human or godlike tongue. 
Gave ever such godlike token 

Since human hearts were strung." 

And surely the pen that wrote the two last stanzas 
in "A Child's Sleep" should never have been 
dipped in gall : 

** As the moon on the lake's face flashes. 
So haply may gleam at whiles 
A dream through the dear deep lashes 
Whereunder a child's eye smiles, 

** And the least of us all that love him 
May take for a moment part 
With angels around and above him. 
And I find a place in his heart." 

Here is the jingling of musical bells ; and a very 
beautiful and spiritual sense of childhood's charms, 
even though the two last lines of the first stanza 
ring leaden. 

XVI 

But, with all its music, Mr. Swinburne's poetry 
has the one great defect that it conveys no lesson, 



202 PARERGA 



teaches no truth, gives us no great ideas to help 

us along the summits of life, and keep us from 

sinking into the valleys. In our days 

essage. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^ prophet, as well as a 

psalmist, or — nothing. His functions changed 
from those of mere verbal artist, as in the days of 
Dryden and Pope, to the introspection and melan- 
choly of Goethe and Byron, until, after the lapse of 
half a century of neglect and contempt, Words- 
worth again raised them to the high position of 
prophetic insight into the workings of the human 
heart, and its eternal sympathies and correspond- 
encies with Nature. " High Priest of Nature " was 
he; and in his wake followed Browning with his 
lofty optimism, and Tennyson with his elaborate 
philosophy of pantheistic doubtings. And there is 
not the least use of any writer of prose or verse 
coming before the public now unless he has a mes- 
sage to his generation. And that message must be 
one of purity and of hope. No matter how sunken 
men may be in vice, — and our age is not an immac- 
ulate one, — the souls of men recoil from the brutish 
philosophy of Lucretius, from the secret indecen- 
cies of Ovid and Petronius. It may revolt against 
the sweet and pure teachings of Christ, but it will 
not go back to Cytherea. Mr. Swinburne would 
have been well advised had he read in all its signifi- 
cance that valedictory addressed to Heine from the 
marble lips of the Venus in the Louvre : 

" How can I help you ? Cannot you see that I have 
lost both my arms ? " 

XVII 

Now, Mr. Swinburne has no message, unless it be 
a suggestion of Paphian rites ; no gospel, except 



SPRING 203 



what is contained in " Laus Veneris " and the 
" Hymn to Proserpine." ^ Possibly he has seen by 
this time that his revolutionary heroes „ r ^ ^ 

^ r 1 J J 1 But of Paphos. 

were made or pasteboard, and that 
his dreams of an "Italia Nuova" have not been 
realised. Carlyle grew tired of Mazzini as ineffec- 
tual, and the verdict of such a foe to Catholicism is 
probably now the verdict of Mr. Swinburne on the 
wily Ligurian. Take, then, the revolutionary songs 
away, ill-adapted as they are to modern ideas, and 
measure his erotic poetry even by such low stand- 
ards as modern ethics will allow, and there remains 
to Mr. Swinburne the reputation of being the most 
marvellous y<?«g"/^«r with the English tongue that has 
yet appeared on English soil, and the best interpre- 
ter of Greek thought to moderns. But few mod- 
erns care for Greek thought, fewer still for that 
peculiar phase of Greek thought which no other 
modern poet has dared to reproduce. 

^ Whilst these notes were passing through the Press, I was re- 
minded that in repeating the common verdict on Mr. Swinburne's 
poems, I should have added that it is quite possible that the public 
might have drifted into its not unusual error of judging the entire 
work of a poet by that very portion which he himself might possi- 
bly consider the least representative of his genius. Mr. Swin- 
burne's position as the greatest of living poets is unassailable, but 
even the gods may wince under injustice ; and it is only fair to say 
that the keenest and most comprehensive of modern critics refuse 
to accept "Poems and Ballads" (i 866-1 878) written in Mr. 
Swinburne's youth, and containing nearly all the erotic poetry he 
has published, as the finest flower and characteristic of his genius ; 
and they would probably challenge the title " Poet of Human 
Love" in favor of " Poet of Humanity." But, as I am a pro- 
found disbeliever in the utility of waiting for the just judgments of 
posterity, I think it is a pity that it is not generally known that it 
has been authoritatively stated that Mr. Swinburne would elect to 
be judged by his larger and maturer work, rather than by those early 
conceits and unbalanced enthusiasms of his youth. 



204 PARERGA 



XVIII 

We meet him but seldom in the records of con- 
temporaries. He does not appear to have touched 
the circle within which Carlyle, Rus- 
kin, and Tennyson moved. His 
closest friend appears to have been the late famous 
master of Balliol, Professor Jowett. He was the 
Professor's constant companion in their Highland 
vacations ; and we meet him frequently at Tummel 
Bridge, drinking strong tea, and enlivening the read- 
ing party by recitations from Charles Dickens. Ex- 
tremes meet in most men, but I do not know that I 
ever experienced such a shock as when I read that 
the author of " Erechtheus " and the " Hymn to 
Proserpine " did actually and habitually, and with 
forethought, impersonate Sairey Gamp. 

XIX 

Once or twice during his long life he has ap- 
peared before the public as protagonist of an idea, 
„ h- ^'^ ^" self-defence. In the first ca- 

ero-wors ip. p^^jj.y j^^ hurled back with Titanic 

strength the violent charges that were made by 
Robert Buchanan against " the fleshly school." 
In the second he repudiated, with the " scorn 
of scorn " of which a poet alone is capable, the 
dedicatory poem written to him on his birthday 
by Eric Mackay. It is a pretty story. The poem 
was ecstatic in its adoration of Mr. Swinburne. 
The closing stanza ran thus : 

" But Hate absorbs thee not ; thy theme is Love, 
And all the joys and all the griefs thereof. 



SPRING 205 



And all the marvels which the years unfold. 
Thy hand is strong ; thy lute-strings are of gold. 
And thou, too, as Chaucer did in years gone by. 
Canst wake the world to wonder and delight. 
And through the courts and corridors of Fame 
Canst make thy voice ring out by day and night 
In full-toned ecstasies of earth and sky. 
Thou hast for badge a star, for faith a flame, 
And for thy meed the halo of a name. 
Thy peers are with the dead who cannot die." 

Here will be noticed symptoms of that highest 
admiration, imitation. The poem appeared in "The 
World" of April 4, 1894. Copies were sent to Mr. 
Swinburne and a friend. No reply or acknowledg- 
ment. Three months passed ; still no reply. Nine 
months elapsed. Then Eric Mackay wrote as an 
aggrieved one. Reply this time : 

"Mr. Swinburne begs to inform Mr. Mackay — whose 
name is unknown to him — that he did receive the number 
of ' The World ' inquired about ; and is happy to learn 
that the lines inscribed to him, which appeared in it, will 
not reappear under that inscription." 

Mr. Mackay wrote back, regretting that Mr. 
Swinburne was no gentleman, and hinting that a 
little personal chastisement would, etc., etc. Reply 
from Lewis and Lewis, solicitors, to the effect that, 
if Mr. Mackay continued the correspondence, the 
intervention of the police would be requisitioned. 
Tableau ! 



XX 

Mr. Swinburne is one of the few great poets 
of our time who has also ventured 
into prose. Whether Tennyson and 
Browning consulted best for their after fame by 



2o6 PARERGA 



limiting their work to poetry is a moot question. 
But there is no law binding a great writer to limita- 
tions of this kind, although eventually, if he escapes 
oblivion, he must take his choice in the Temple of 
Fame as prose-writer or poet. No man can occupy 
two niches, where the space is narrow and already 
overcrowded. Carlyle ventured into poetry, which 
no one reads, although, as we have said elsewhere, 
his " Mason-song" is far finer than its original, the 
"Symbolum" of Goethe. Tennyson wrote a little 
prose, chiefly in connection with his " Idylls." 
It is unknown, or forgotten. It is true that Shel- 
ley may be remembered by his " Letters," when 
many of his poems are blotted out from public 
memory; and Macaulay's " Lays" may yet consti- 
tute his chief claim to immortality. But, as a rule, 
men are judged by one species of work. The 
world will not acknowledge Michael Angelo to 
have been a supreme poet, because it acknowledges 
him supreme artist. It is chary of praise, economic 
in worship. It will only pay for one claim. 



XXI 

But it seems quite certain now that Mr. Swin- 
burne will owe whatever of fame is meted out to him 
„ „ , . by posterity to his merits as poet. 

Too Emphatic. « • • • i i 

As critic or essayist he cannot be 
taken seriously, for he has carried into all his writ- 
ings a passion for extreme opinion, which is best 
described as "vehement and volcanic." Here he 
beats even Carlyle hollow. He has a command of 
vituperative language that quite equals that of the 
Chelsea scold ; and he is more indiscriminate in his 
abuse, as he is more lavish in his praise. Carlyle 



SPRING 



207 



praised no man ; or did it always with damnatory- 
restrictions and objections. Mr. Swinburne's adula- 
tion is as frantic as his vituperation. Whoever has 
read his preface to the poems of S. T. Coleridge or 
his multitudinous essays on Victor Hugo will easily 
understand this. With these poets there are no 
limitations. Everything is in the superlative — no 
equals, no rivals ! And yet in his criticism on 
" Lear," he seems to have heard that there was a 
man called Shakspeare, and that he lived long be- 
fore Victor Hugo, and is likely to live long after 
the exile of Guernsey has been forgotten. Well ; 
one can excuse enthusiasm ; but is there an excuse 
for calling Mark Pattison " an ape of the Dead 
Sea"? It was a pretty asset of Carlyle's — that 
word " ape." " Called to see that ape, Keble, 
author of a book, * The Christian Year.' " But it 
is hardly polite. And what shall we think of this 
pious sentiment regarding Constable and Bannatyne, 
who were the causes, innocent perhaps, of Scott's 
bankruptcy : 

" It is a comfort to remember that their place in 
Hell is now between Heming and Condell." 

Surely vituperative madness is not altogether 
confined to the Celt. 



XXII 

And, if Mr. Swinburne has chosen to write of 
the " ramping renegades or clattering corsairs" of 
Byron ; of his " violent and vulgar ^ ^ , . 

^ r J 11 Tantaene Irae? 

resources or cant and rant and glare 
and splash and splutter;" of his "sickly stumble 
of drivelling debility," his " drawling draggletail 
drab of a muse, Inyx, the screaming wry-neck " ; 



2o8 PARERGA 



he must not complain, if he is said by another 
writer " to pile butter upon bacon, and honey on 
sugar, driving the aching sense to nausea with the 
dead, inevitable beat of the rhythm, and the irri- 
tating recurrence of alliteration and assonance. He 
seems a sort of poetic Blondin, keeping perilous 
foothold on an imperceptible wire in mid-air, and 
surrounded by blazing coruscations of rockets and 
crackers." 

Such are the amenities among the gods, O ye 
mortals ! 

XXIII 

I notice that the best of Mr. Swinburne's poems 
are un-Swinburnian, — that is, they are not recog- 
^ ^ ^ ._, nisable as Mr. Swinburne's owing to 

Loch Torndon. , , r 1 1 • • i ° 

the absence or alliteration and super- 
latives. Here is a lovely little bit from " Loch 
Torridon " : 

♦* All night long, in the world of sleep 
Skies and waters were soft and deep. 
Shadow clothed them, and silence made 
Soundless music of dream and shade. 
All above us, the livelong night 
Shadow, kindled with sense of light; 
All around us, the brief night long 
Silence, laden with sense of song. 
Stars and mountains without, we knew. 
Watched and waited the soft night through. 
All unseen, but divined and dear 
Thrilled the touch of the sea's breath near; 
All unheard, but alive, like sound. 
Throbbed the sense of the sea's life round; 
Round us, near us, in depth and height. 
Soft as darkness, and keen as light." 



SPRING 209 



XXIV 

Have I said that Swinburne has no message to 
mankind? Well, here suddenly am I confronted 
with a new theory, — namely, that 

1 . , 1 r 1 cc Another View. 

he is the preacher or the most ex- 
alted ethical idealism;" that "he is, like Victor 
Hugo, in exceptional nearness to the Divine ele- 
ment in the universe, the element that makes for 
love, pity, purity, in fact, for holiness." " The 
essential attitudes of the Christian temper," says 
Mr. W. M. Payne of The Dial, Chicago, "receive 
Swinburne's fullest sympathy, save only the meek 
and lowly attitude, upon which he pours out the 
vials of his scorn. The proud exaltation of the 
full-statured soul is the key to Swinburne's ethics 
through its close relation to his conception of duty, 
and his strenuous demand for complete sacrifice of 
self." " Victor Hugo and Swinburne are both pri- 
marily spiritual poets, — poets of exalted spiritual 
passion." 

XXV 

The English language must have undergone a 
tremendous revolution when words like these could 
be used by rational beings of the 
most sensuous poetry in the English Mad*^'^"^ '^"^ 
tongue. But criticism, like history, 
has run wild. When such amiable beings as Crom- 
well, Nero, Danton, Mirabeau, etc., are deified in 
history, we cannot be surprised when, in the eternal 
jugglery of words, " physical " and " moral," " sen- 
sual " and "spiritual," "Christian" and "Pagan" 
are interchanged, and assumed to be synonymous. 

'4 



PARERGA 



A newspaper critic, like a lawyer, can prove any- 
thing. Nay, not prove, but assert; and assert just 
where there is no peril of contradiction or disproof. 
But the world does not take such persons seriously. 
It may repent of its early indiscretions, or oblivion, 
or stupidity, in the case of such a poet as Words- 
worth ; but it never stamps poetry as sensuous or 
suggestive without adhering to the verdict. 



XXVI 

Hence the best that can now be done for Swinburne 

is to make a judicious selection of his best poems, 

and give these to the public. No 

A Selection. i i j i r xt 

poet should ask tor more. JNo poet 
can be remembered in our fast age, when such ex- 
cellent verse is poured out so lavishly in every 
magazine, except by one or two poems, which have 
fastened on the public fancy. The day may come 
when Tennyson will be known only by one or two 
lyrics, and perhaps " In Memoriam." And if Mr. 
Swinburne survives, twenty years hence, as the 
author of one or two great choral odes, he should 
thank his stars, and be content with such a modicum 
of fame. But here again lies the secret of his non- 
success. He has been the melodious psalmist of 
forbidden things, but he has given no great thought, 
no lofty line to the world. Shall we describe him, 
as another poet limns himself, as 

**The idle singer of an empty day; '* 

or shall we say that he should have been poet- 
laureate to the Sultan, or national bard to Lydians 
or Cypriotes ? But the Goths of the North, with 



SPRING 



their eyes darkened from city-fogs or sea-mists, and 
who are for ever seeking for new gospels, and not 
finding them, have nothing in common with this 
Southern singer, who, like his goddess Cytherea, 
seems to have sprung from a purple and enchanted 
sea. 



XXVII 

And yet, even if we suppose that Mr. Swinburne 
has misdirected his splendid powers, it must be 
confessed that he has left some noble 
lines, some delightful verses that men Lhfe^s^""^"^ 
will not permit to die. The grand 
criterion of immortality is to pass from the printed 
page to the mouths of the people. When suddenly 
a line or a passage leaps to the lips, it is a sign that 
it has gone down into the heart and made its man- 
sion there. I make no doubt that hundreds have 
committed to memory, for daily use and enjoyment, 
the chorus in Atalanta in Calydon. I know that I 
never see the sea breaking into surf on the sea- 
shore, but the magnificent Alexandrine comes to 
my lips : 

*' Where the thundering Bosphorus echoes the thunder of Pontic seas." 

And for forty years I have never witnessed the 
entrancing sight of night, stooping down on the 
sea with its hanging clusters of stars, without think- 
ing of the words : 

" And with stars and sea-winds in her raiment 
Night sinks on the sea." 



212 



PARERGA 



Section II 

XXVIII 

Apropos of great lines and great thoughts in our 
poets, I make no apology for inserting here these 
words of Goethe's (which many will 
seek in vain in all the selections of 
Goethe's "Gedichte" that have been 
given to the world), which are well known, or per- 
haps I should say ought to be well known, through 
Carlyle's translation. Goethe calls the poem Sym- 
bolum. It is found in the series " Loge," in the 
sixth volume of Goethe's collected works.^ 



Goethe's Sym 
bolum. 



Symbolum. 



Des Maurers Wandeln 
Es gleicht dem Leben 
Und sein Bestreben 
Es gleicht dem Handein 
Der Menschen auf Erden. 

Die Zukunft decket 
Schmerzen und Glucke 
Schrittweis dem Blicke 
Doch ungeschrecket 
Dringen wir vorwarts. 

Und schwer und schwerer 
Hangt eine Hiille 
Mit Ehrfurcht Stille 
Ruhn oben die Sterne 
Und unten die Graber. 

Betracht sie genauer 
Und siehe, so melden 
Im Busen der Helden 
Sie Wandelnde Schauer 
Und ernste Gefiihle. 



The mason's ways are 
A type of existence. 
And his persistence 
Is as the ways are 
Of men in this world. 

The Future hides in it 
Gladness and Sorrow. 
We press still thorough, 
Nought that abides in it 
Daunting us ; onward ! 

And forward before us 
Gleams the dark portal. 
Goal of all mortal. 
Stars silent rest o'er us, 
Graves under us, silent. 

While earnest thou gazest 
Comes boding of terror. 
Comes phantasm and error. 
Perplexes the bravest 
With doubt and misgiving. 



1 Goethe's Werke, Band 6. Stuttgart, 1857. 



SPRING 213 



Doch rufen von driiben But heard are the Voices, 

Die Stimmen der Geister, Heard are the Sages, 

Die Stimmen der Meister, The worlds and the ages. 

Versaumt nicht zu iiben Choose well ! Your choice 

Die Krafte des Guten ! Brief, but yet endless. 

Hier winden sich Kronen Here eyes do regard you 

In ewiger Stille, From eternity's stillness. 

Die sollen mit Fiille Here is all fulness 

Die Thatigen lohnen ! Ye brave, to reward you. 



Wir heissen euch hoffen ! Work, and despair not 



The strange thing about this poem is, that Car- 
lyle's translation is far more suggestive and spirited 
than the original. Carlyle was a poet without the 
song-gift; but here he seems to have struck sud- 
denly upon a lyrical sermon, which he was fond of 
repeating, especially the last line : We bid you be of 
hope I 

XXIX 

Was it because he felt himself so utterly " without 
hope in this world " that he was always trying to 
summon courage by such words ? It 
may be said that Carlyle lived the 
last forty years of his Hfe in despair. That last 
expression of his to Froude: "God does nothing!" 
is his valedictory and death-bed profession of utter 
hopelessness. All the hysterical screaming of forty 
years has died down into that feeble burr of despair. 
As preacher and reformer, he had been as utter a 
failure as the Edward Irving on whom he lavished 
such pitying contempt. To all human seeming, he 
had been a successful man. The ordinary accom- 
paniments of a serene and honourable old age — 
wealth, fame, honour, troops of friends, — were his. 
And yet he sank into his lonely grave, not only 
with the Vanitas Vanitatum of the preacher on his 



214 PARERGA 



lips, but with a keen sense of disappointment that 
his mission had been a failure. He had conquered 
the world so far as the world's lip-service was con- 
cerned, only to find that the captive hugged its 
chains and refused the offer of emancipation. 

XXX 

There is a line of demarcation drawn across Car- 
lyle's life, marking off whatever was great and noble 
in it from all that was hysterical and 
Eariy Heroic affected,— a line as marked and obvi- 
ous as that which distinguishes ado- 
lescence and senility in most men, only in Carlyle's 
case the contrast was reversed. Wisdom and seren- 
ity were not the fruitage or heritage of his years. 
There is something really magnificent in his early 
life. Born in humble circumstances, the son of a 
Scotch mason, and stricken early in life with ill- 
health, he yet believed that a revelation was made 
to him that he was a child of genius, and that the 
world outside — the dim, blind, stammering world 
— would, sooner or later, acknowledge the fact, and 
come bowing to his feet. It was his belief in his 
star of destiny, — the faith that genius always in- 
spires, and that helps to surmount every obstacle 
towards its development and fulfilment. These 
early days in Ecclefechan, when he consumed his 
evening meal of bread and milk on the top of the 
stone fence outside his father's dwelling, and saw 
visions as of Patmos ; the dreary hours in the little 
school at Annan, brightened and darkened once 
only by the presence of Irving; the opening up of 
life when he was transferred to Kirkcaldy ; that 
evening on Drumclog Moss, when, after a long 
vacation walk, he and Irving stood still and talked 



SPRING 



215 



about the eternal truths, and saw the parting of their 
ways ; the hours in his scanty lodgings in Edin- 
burgh, toiling over Legendre's Geometry, teaching 
the young Bullers, whose tuition (ranked in money 
value at £100 a year) Irving's brotherly solicitude 
had obtained for him ; or writing furtive articles for 
the " Edinburgh Review," which were not even 
acknowledged, and for Brewster's " Encyclopaedia," 
which were most frugally and economically paid for; 
his lonely hours at Mainhill, Hoddam Hill, and 
Scotsbrig ; his romantic marriage and subsequent 
eremitical life amidst the " Druidical Solitudes" of 
Craigenputtock ; the burning of the ships and em- 
barking for London ; his uphill fight against poverty 
and neglect; his fearlessness, his manliness, his in- 
dependence ; his contempt for money, society, social 
rank, and everything the human heart holds dear; 
his gradual emergence into the light of public recog- 
nition through every kind of Cimmerian gloom and 
adamantine opposition, — the whole is a grand epic, 
in which you cannot hear the clash of arms or the 
shout of victory, but the more noble heart-throbs of 
a great spirit, warring against untoward circumstances, 
beaten down, submerged, almost extinguished, but 
finally victorious, not through adventitious help or 
eleemosynary assistance, but by virtue of its own 
indomitable energy and invincible determination. 

XXXI 

But the epic suddenly closes there. The life- 
history of the man, made glorious by struggle and 
strain, now degenerates into a kind 

r y •!• t An Epic's Close. 

or complacent servility on the one 

hand, and furious defiance on the other, — both 

deeply resented by his dearest friends, and tolerated 



2i6 PARERGA 



by an easy public because atoned for by the glamour 
of genius. I do not know a more humiliating inci- 
dent in the lives of great poets and teachers than 
that journey to Scotland under the patronage of 
Lady Ashburton, when Carlyle and his wife were 
huddled into a second-class compartment with her 
ladyship's servants, whilst her ladyship occupied an 
ex-royal saloon. Strange to say, Carlyle never saw 
the incongruity and degradation of the matter ; nor 
has Mr. Froude seemed to observe it. Jane Welsh 
Carlyle resented it; and refused to return from 
Scotland under similar circumstances. I never read 
the incident without a blush of shame at seeing this 
child of genius, this strong spirit, carried like a 
valet, as merely one of her ladyship's suite. And, 
alas ! no man ever wrote so bitterly, so savagely of 
the flunkey-soul. 

XXXII 

And then comes one of the last scenes. It is 
Mr. Smalley, the American retailer of small things, 
that tells it — how Carlyle, having 
returned from his night walk through 
Chelsea, and having consumed (dyspeptic as he 
was) vast chunks of plum-cake and bread and 
butter at tea, sat down on the floor, back to fire- 
place, took out a comb, brushed his white hair 
down over his eyes, lighted the long clay pipe, 
and treated his visitor to one tedious monologue 
of two hours' duration. The words sounded 
strangely familiar to his hearer. He went home 
and found the mighty monologue a mere recital 
of some old stale platitudes from essays on Chart- 
ism, or Latter-Day Pamphlets. " How are the 
mighty fallen ! " And all those screech-owl letters 



SPRING 217 



to newspapers, and all those maudlin letters to his 
" goody " (which she accused him for having writ- 
ten with a view to publication for posterity), and all 
those noisy declamations from the Apostle of Si- 
lence ; and all his scorn for whatever is sweet, and 
beautiful, and sacred in life, — ah, me! how one 
does regret that he ever left his Hermitage, and fell 
under the spell of tongues more terrible than those 
for which he flung his pitying scorn on Edward 
Irving ! And was Irving a subject for scorn ? I 
trow not ! Of the two men, Irving stands forth as 
the most lovable and honourable. If in genius he 
was of smaller stature, in true nobility of character 
he stands high above his great compatriot. His 
noble generosity to Carlyle, when the latter was a 
struggling teacher whilst Irving was an acknowledged 
master, his kind words : " Two Annan men must 
not be strangers here" ; his free offer of the use of 
his library, an asset about which most men are jeal- 
ously conservative ; his honourable relinquishment 
of Jane Welsh in order that he might keep his en- 
gagement with the plain, muddy-complexioned Miss 
Martin ; his loyal welcome to Carlyle in London ; 
his pitiable illusions and painful reverses ; his half- 
prophetic enthusiasm ; his decline and fall from 
such transcendent heights as he had reached ; and 
his noble equanimity under crushing adversity will 
bear comparison with the querulous, sad, unhappy 
life that, even though it were a cresset and beacon- 
fire to humanity, smouldered and crackled painfully 
to the end there in that dark house in Chelsea. 



2i8 PARERGA 



XXXIII 

One could have wished that Carlyle had never left 
the solitudes of Scotland, but from perfect union with 
Nature, had received of the plenti- 
Piacef'^"^^** ^ tude of her inspirations, and com- 
municated it through his marvellous 
gift of language to the world. - There would have 
been something akin to the circumstances and sur- 
roundings of the prophets, who choose stony deserts 
or barren mountains for their residences, in his selec- 
tion of the brown moors and tors of a Scottish 
highland as the place of his meditations on those 
problems of existence that loomed up vague, shad- 
owy, but colossal before the eyes of the young sage 
and scholar. For clearly, from the moment he 
began to think, life and not how to live was the 
transcendent question for Carlyle. " The hush of 
the world's expectation as the day died" was a He- 
brew speech to him, even as a child. How the 
further glories of the universe broke on his imagi- 
nation, and how the cryptic handwriting of Nature 
became a life-torturing puzzle to him, we can well 
imagine. How the world would have listened and 
wondered and admired, if those after-revelations of 
his had come out from the desert on the wings of a 
prophetic voice, and not from the dust of a London 
hall or the fogs of the Chelsea embankment. 

XXXIV 

He must have carried to London in 1834 some- 
thing of his Scottish atmosphere of energy and 
„. ^ virility, and drawn largely on this 

His Letters. /' r . ° ^ , 

Storehouse or native power and na- 
tive independence for a few years. But then there 



SPRING 219 



was a visible decline. " The French Revolution " 
touched the high-water mark of his genius. In 
" Heroes and Hero-worship" the tide came to a 
standstill. Once again, in " Past and Present," 
there was an eflfort, a tour de force, as of one who 
felt the power slipping away from him, and thence 
a steady decadence downwards through dreary jere- 
miads and hysterical shriekings to the end. Car- 
lyle's letters from 18 14-1826 may yet come to be 
regarded not only as valuable biographical helps, 
but as the best indications of his genius. There 
are passages in those letters, descriptive and meta- 
phorical, which he has not surpassed ; and assuredly 
the great work wrought out in pain and conflict 
amidst the terrific desolation of Craigenputtock will 
be the last of Carlyle's writings that will fail to grasp 
the admiration and attention of the world. 



XXXV 

The one forecast or indication of what Carlyle 
was to become in later years is a certain fickleness 
of judgment, as when in one letter 

u 1. 1 /^ ^u tc^L ^ ^ • His Fickleness. 

he styles (joethe "the greatest genius 
that has lived for a century, and the greatest ass that 
has lived for three. I could sometimes fall down 
and worship him ; at other times I could kick him 
out of the room." ^ And again of " Wilhelm Meis- 
ter": "A book which I love not, which I am sure 
will never sell, but which I am determined to print 
and finish. There are touches of the very highest, 
most ethereal genius in it; but diluted with floods 
of insipidity, which even / would not have written 
for the world. Some of the poetry is very bad, 

^ Letters, vol. ii. p. 224. 



220 PARERGA 



some of it rather good. The following is mediocre 
— the worst kind" Readers of Carlyle will be 
amazed to find those words written of verses which 
he afterwards quoted so frequently and with such 
enthusiasm : 

'* Who never ate his bread in sorrow. 
Who never spent the darksome hours 
Weeping, and watching for the morrow, — 
He knows you not, ye gloomy Powers." 



XXXVI 

And in his letters to Goethe there is a symptom 

of the servility and adulation to the great ones of 

the earth, which afterwards alternated 

ipper. painfully with such fierce assertions 

of independence. Reading those letters now in 

** The dark backward and abysm of Time,** 

one cannot help feeling a sudden shudder of pain at 
expressions of admiration and flattery which might 
not be out of place in some second-rate poetaster 
craving for patronage at some nobleman's door, but 
which seem fulsome and undignified coming from 
the pen of one who aspired to be seer and prophet 
to his generation. I have never seen anything like 
it in the writings of the masters of literature. In 
the vast correspondence of Goethe himself, there is 
either a perfect equipoise of dignified serenity, or else 
a lordly condescension that seems to dwarf into a 
mere pupil the greater genius that wrote from the 
silences and loneliness of Craigenputtock. 



SPRING 



XXXVII 

Besides the natural decadence of power that fol- 
lowed Carlyle's introduction to London society, 
and his assumption of a dictatorship ^. ^ ^. . 

, . , , r 1 , , , , His Ambition. 

which the world would not acknowl- 
edge, there was one cause mentioned by a close ob- 
server, Mr. Larkin, which operated powerfully 
towards the disintegration of Carlyle's powers, and 
the development of that morbid irritability which 
alienated such friends as Herbert Spencer and John 
Stuart Mill, and that large body of admirers whose 
principles, rudely attacked by Carlyle, compelled 
them to abandon belief in his inerrancy. This 
cause was his secret ambition, kindled by the mo- 
mentary success of his political works, to get into 
Parliament, and thence unto some coign of vantage 
as minister, whence he could mould the minds and 
destinies of at least large sections of the population 
to his own peculiar views. For he verily believed 
he was a God-sent man, — an apostle to a genera- 
tion stiff of neck and hard of heart and slow of 
comprehension, and that he alone of all men saw 
the clear way to make straight the way of the 
Lord. 

XXXVIII 

He seemed to pivot all his hopes on the states- 
man. Sir Robert Peel, whom he firmly believed he 
had converted to his opinions on 
many public questions. There had ^^ °^ 
been, too, a little informal rapprochement between 
the statesman and the writer ; and some expressions 
of mutual esteem. Then destiny — the destiny that 



222 PARERGA 



was always thwarting Carlyle, and which he believed 
he had strength to conquer and defy, interfered. 
Sir Robert Peel was killed by a fall from his horse ; 
and Carlyle's political dreams vanished. Both politi- 
cal parties, representing for the most part the sane 
common-sense of Britain, shrank from association 
with such an iconoclast. Their great organs, quar- 
terly, monthly, daily, refused his fiery denunciations 
of anything and everything under the sun. They 
feared probably that such a man, inflated with all 
the adulation of the empty heads of London, would 
order the Speaker from the chair, as he went very 
near ordering the preacher from the pulpit on the 
only occasion on which he visited St. Paul's. 

XXXIX 

Thenceforth Carlyle seems to have lost all self- 
control. The humour, grim though it was, that 
pervaded " Sartor " and the story of 

^ " ^ ' Abbot Samson, and the French 

Revolution, grew into the savage denunciation with 
which he lashed, like Swift, all opponents. The 
poetical faculty, which he certainly possessed, al- 
though he lacked the ear for metre or rhyme, and 
which constitutes the great charm of his early letters 
and writings, seems to have degenerated into a kind 
of fiery rhetoric, that scorched and withered instead 
of fostering and embalming; and the sage of Chel- 
sea became, to all observers who could get beyond 
the glamour of a great name, "the bad-tempered 
old gentleman, who called down God's lightning 
from heaven every time he could not lay his hand 
upon his match-box." ^ 

^ Lowell. 



SPRING 223 



XL 

There are two terrific trials in the life of every 
great thinker — and Carlyle experienced them, but 
did not come out of them "the ^ ^ . , 

, , ,, /> I I 1 Two Trials. 

Strong athlete or whom the author 
of "The Imitation" speaks. These are to live a 
divine life amidst all that is squalid and ignoble ; 
and to accept in silence a lower and subordinate place 
beneath the futilities and imbecilities which, through 
interest, cunning, or intrigue are enthroned in the 
high places of the earth. There is a third, namely, 
the trial of a high, pure soul, in the grasp of malig- 
nant imbecility, powerless to free itself, loathing its 
master, but impotent to dethrone him. From time 
to time certain souls feel themselves called to a higher 
life. Whether the inspiration comes from heredi- 
tary influences, home training, extensive reading, 
or from on high, they feel themselves constrained to 
depart from the beaten track of men, and to walk 
alone on the eternal hills whilst their every-day, 
lower existence is still cast amongst the common- 
places and wretched banalities of the work-a-day 
world. It is the strenuous life, straining after great 
things ; but it is one full of trials to the spirit. It 
is a way of desolation, but not of darkness, a way of 
visible trials, but invisible helps. Many start for- 
ward in the course. Few attain the goal. Fewer 
still the bravium, or reward. 



224 ' PARERGA 



XLI 

Their great temptation and obstruction is — that 
they make themselves the " heroes of their own 

epic." They become self-absorbed. 
Temptations. ^^^^ ^^ ^'^^ conducive to humility ; 

and the humble alone succeed. Such 
souls must learn to live heroic lives without a hero. 
They must be content with the fruits of the spirit, 
without hanging them, like apples of the Hesper- 
ides, on every tree. They must think in prose, 
not in the long roll of the hexameter. They must 
be content to live unknown, and die unnoticed. 
For the breath of human worship and applause will 
stain the white mirror of their shields ; and if every 
one wants to examine with his soiled fingers the 
brand, Excalibur, very soon will its edge be dulled, 
and the mystic letters will vanish. In the solitude 
of their own thoughts, in the silence and reserve of 
the spirit, must such souls wear out the days of life, 
content to know that they are electa ex millibus, 
chosen out of thousands by some arbitrary, but 
unerring decree. 

XLII 

The second and third classes of souls, conscious 
of their own integrity and greatness, chafe under 
. the dominion of imbecilities. It may 

be the unfitness, the deordination of 
things that exasperates them ; or it may be that 
wounded pride, which must needs be compelled to 
suffer and endure much at the mercy of hands that 
are feeble, but too prone to smite. For a time 
there is sullen discontent, hidden rebellious feelings, 



SPRING 225 



murmurings at such a disposition of things which 
seems to run counter to all order and proportion. 
Then comes the end — either open rebellion, or 
the swift abandonment of some high calling, that 
the destinies determined should be pursued right 
through the teeth of every discouragement or ob- 
struction. There is the tacit and mute forgetful- 
ness of that which should never be forgotten — 
that Law is Law; and that the administration of 
law is placed most often in the hands of the imbe- 
cile or malignant, who nevertheless must be obeyed, 
for their charter comes from the High Powers, that 
work in mysteries, and whose reasons or designs it 
is not given to man to fathom. 

XLIII 

It is a question whether the chariots of life 
could best be guided by the noble and wise in 
every generation. For guidance re- 
quires knowledge and experience; Th^ Chariots of 
and knowledge and experience are 
very often destructive of nobility of character. 
Even a chauffeur requires training. And as the 
chauffeur must know every curve, and rut, and 
sweep in the road he is travelling, so the charioteer, 
who guides a State, or a department, must know 
every foible or weakness, or eccentricity in that 
little section of humanity committed to his care. 
But with that knowledge, especially if it come 
from experience, there will arise, too, a certain 
contempt, even though it be wrapped in the fair 
garments of mercy and charity. And there is no 
greater solvent of nobility of soul than even the in- 
cipient feeling of contempt. There never yet was 



226 PARERGA 



a ruler who held a firm hand to the end. Like 
unwearied Nature, each seeks his goal through the 
lines of least resistance. 

XLIV 

When, therefore, thinkers, like Carlyle, are quietly- 
ignored and set aside by those who have the ap- 
^^ . pointment of Councillors of State, or 

Charioteers. i j r j • i • i i 

heads or departments m their hands, 
they have no reason to complain. The author of 
The Advancement of Learning and the Essays was 
not a success as a Lord Chancellor. The light that 
was to stream forever unto all future generations 
was obscured in a court of law. Making all 
allowance for Lord Macaulay's unsparing denuncia- 
tion as a piece of wanton rhetoric, and not a judicial 
examination of an obscure and complicated case, 
there can be no doubt that Lord Bacon does not 
come out of the ordeal with clean hands. But it 
was the circumstances that surrounded him which 
were really responsible for his apostasy from honour, 
not the native character of the man. A philosopher 
has no business in a law court, nor in a House of 
Lords. In his study, he soars aloft and contem- 
plates humanity from the summit of his science. 
If he descends to closer and more practical relations, 
humanity drags him down to its own level, and 
beneath it. 

XLV 

I have just stumbled upon one of those tremen- 
dous expressions uttered, or written 

Expr?s^sion. ^^ ^^ ^Y ^ careless hand, but which 

seem to make one's heart stand still, 

and hold one's breath by reason of their sublimity. 



SPRING 



227 



The sentence occurs in the " Recollections of Mary 
Somerville," and runs thus: 

" The perturbations (of the Solar system) are 
only the oscillations of that immense Pendulum 
of Eternity, which beats centuries as ours beats 
seconds." 

Did the authoress, great as she was, see the awful 
import of these words ? They are written hap- 
hazard at the end of a chapter; and they close 
a paragraph, commencing with Newton's doubt 
of the permanence of our solar system, and La 
Grange's confidence in its stability, inasmuch as 
these disturbances were periodical, and arose from 
the reciprocal attraction of the planets and their 
satellites. But Mrs. Somerville always prided her- 
self on her severe style, as most in accordance with 
the science she illustrated so admirably ; and I see 
from Lord Brougham's letters to her, and from her 
great French correspondents, that this was a peculiar- 
ity on which they highly complimented her. How, 
then, did she lose and forget herself for the moment, 
and break into those lines that I thought could be 
written by no pen but Jean Paul's ? 



XLVI 

The Pendulum of Eternity ! I can hear the swift, 
ceaseless ticking of the watch in my pocket; the 
slower beat of the clock on my 
mantel-piece; the still more solemn '"^J^^^^^jftJ^'J™ 
sound of the hall-clock ; the grave 
steady beat of the sacristy-clock, that has swung to 
and fro for nigh a century; the still slower swing of 
the town-hall clock, that seems a fitting accompani- 
ment to the deep boom of its bells ; but where is 



228 PARERGA 



the "Pendulum of Eternity"? In what vast un- 
known, undreamt-of spaces in the great immensity- 
does it swing its gigantic bulk ? Between what con- 
stellations does it oscillate, and set in motion those 
wheels and springs in the mighty void that we call 
systems, and of which our suns and planets are but 
the golden rivets ? Take your pen and write — 
The clocks of earth move but a Second under the 
swing of their pendulums ; but every beat in the 
Pendulum of Eternity marks a Century ! Put it 
down in figures, and contrast them. Then you 
may understand what the poet means when he 
says his clock 

"Beats out the little lives of men." 



XLVII 

But mark the minor words "perturbations," 

"oscillations." They are the mere tremulous and 

momentary shudder of the gigantic 

A Cataclysm. i • i • ° i i- 

mechanism, that moves m sublime 
and eternal silence through the dark fields of space, 
just as my clock trembles and vibrates a little at the 
music of the gong that strikes the hours. And yet 
— mark the terror of the thing! Earthquakes, 
volcanoes, tidal waves, suddenly swallowing up 
thousands and tens of thousands of pigmy men, 
tumbling stately cities into masses of shapeless ruin, 
blotting out landmarks, and, in the wake of that 
momentary shudder, dragging the fierce demon of 
Fire to complete its work, staggering the minds of 
civilisation, until men begin to grow dazed and con- 
fused with terror — ah, yes! I touch with my foot 
the anthill, and break down the work of generations, 
whilst the startled insects run to and fro. And there 



SPRING 229 



is just one little swerve in the diurnal motion of the 
earth; and the anthills of men come tumbling into 
ruin and the little, vain, but eternally plastic crea- 
ture stands appalled at the phenomenon, before he 
commences, with unerring instinct, to plan and build 
again. 

XLVIII 

Come, bury or burn those corpses at once. 
Work has to be done. Don't you see how the 
planets swing on in ceaseless music 
and serenity; and old Earth moves Jf^^^^nwrrse" 
round utterly regardless of the de- 
struction she has caused by that one little jar and 
shudder on her surface ? Come, bury those bodies ! 
Why cumber they the ground? A thousand, ten 
thousand, twenty thousand — it makes no matter 
whatsoever ! The Universe is indifferent. That 
slight departure from the smooth and even perfection 
in which the planets move, as if each glided along 
in a perfect groove, only emphasises the beauty and 
grandeur of that eternal motion and flux of things 
that goes on under the names of diurnal and annual 
movements. If we were not made conscious from 
time to time of some slight discord in the eternal 
harmony of things, we should soon become heedless 
or incredulous about the latter. A jarring note is 
sometimes introduced by a great master to accentu- 
ate the finished perfection of fugue or sonata. And 
if sometimes the Earth did not shiver in its course, 
we might forget that she does not stand still, but 
swings in inconceivable velocity in her destined 
path through the infinities of space. 



230 



PARERGA 



XLIX 

But these little fragments and remnants of shat- 
tered humanity must be gathered up somehow, in 
coffin or casket, in basket or tumbril, 

Stars and Graves. j t • j 3 --ni. ■ jj j 

and hidden away. 1 heir sudden and 
awful dissolution is part of the programme — one 
of the little accidents of the universe — an incident, 
and a small one in the vast history of ephemeral 
things. And strange to say, men seem to heed such 
things quite as little as blind, mechanical nature. A 
paragraph for a day or two in a morning paper, with 
some large type and notes of exclamation — and 
that is all ! In a week all is forgotten. The busy, 
plastic little creatures are already at work, clearing 
away debris^ laying new foundations, planning new 
streets, mapping new thoroughfares, determined to 
pile a new Tower of Babel on the ruins of the old. 
The comet that caused that slight deflection in the 
earth's axis, has sped streaming into space; or 
Saturn or Jupiter that developed too much energy 
is calmly looking down from the eternal heights. 
There is magnificent silence and indifference every- 
where. And the graves of the martyred thousands 
are also silent. 

" Ruhn oben die Sterne, 
Und unten die Graber." ^ 



Nothing surprises me more than the contrasts 
of life. I notice that sometimes a 

Life!*^*^*^ °^ little circumstance that passes un- 

heeded and ineffectual in every-day 

life, becomes suddenly magnified in a certain junc- 

^ Stars silent rest o'er us, 
Graves, under us, silent. 



SPRING 231 



ture of accidents into an event of vast importance. 
And the most trivial offence against morality, which 
perhaps for generations has passed unheeded, sud- 
denly develops into a crime, which receives exem- 
plary but disproportionate punishment. But these 
singular contrasts are in no wise so manifested as in 
the estimate that is placed by men on human life. 
Here in the wards of a hospital is a little child 
whose life is imperilled in the grip of some dire 
disease. Lights are lowered ; footfalls are made 
inaudible by slippers of felt ; night and day, a 
skilled and trained nurse never leaves that bed- 
side ; grave doctors come in three or four times a 
day, examine with knitted brows the diaries or 
noctaries of the nurses — pulsations, temperature, 
food, liquids, the action of medicines; develop furi- 
ous tempers if there is the slightest appearance of 
neglect; anxiously consult with one another; open 
heavy tomes for new lights ; go away perturbed ; 
return with deeper furrows on their foreheads ; and 
all this science and skill and zeal — to save that 
little thread of life that vibrates in that tiny child. 

LI 

And if death intervenes doctors and nurses feel 
that they are defeated and shamed. They pass by 
that little waxen figure with averted 
eyes and downcast heads. Death is 
the victor, and he waves his black flag in derision 
above their heads. There was life^ — life in its 
most humble and tiniest form, and they have failed 
to save it. Yet those same doctors will pass from 
the bedside of that child where they fought such a 
desperate battle, and, taking up the morning news- 
paper in the hospital surgery, read with perfect 



232 PARERGA 



composure and little interest of twenty thousand 
lives lost in a tidal wave in Japan, or a thousand 
lives lost in a South American earthquake, or a 
regiment or two blown to atoms suddenly by a 
concealed mine in some mad human conflict. How 
do you explain it? Professional honour? No. 
That won't do. Honour is not at stake. They 
have done all that men can do. Tenderness for 
that child ? No, alas ! The cases are too com- 
mon ; and tenderness vanishes through familiarity. 
And they don't allude to honour; and they don't 
assume a tenderness they are far from feeling. No ! 
It is life! life! It is their duty, their vocation, to 
save life, no matter how mutilated and miserable it 
shall be. And they have failed. 

LII 

Let us ask Mother Nature, for unconsciously it 
is her peremptory behests they are obeying. They 

won't admit it. They will mutter 
Nature.*" science ! science ! but they don't 

know that Nature is the mother 
and preceptress of science. What shall we ask 
her? Oh, yes! How is it that you. Mother Na- 
ture, take such infinite pains for the reproduction 
and multiplication of vegetable and animal life ; and 
the after conservation of a fungus, a bud, a flower, 
a fresh-water polype, so that nothing shall touch 
them, or impair them, or destroy them ; and then 
— fling them broadcast into the dustbins and rub- 
bish-carts of creation ? Not only the reproductive 
instinct, but the maternal or conservative instinct is 
everywhere. Naturalists stand amazed at the inge- 
nuity with which not only animals, but plants, con- 
serve their offspring, and ward off from that tiny 



SPRING 233 



egg or bud all hostile forces and elements with such 
solicitude that one would think that that egg and 
bud are the only remaining specimens of their kind. 
And yet we know that 100,000 seeds in one solitary 
plant are doomed to extinction ; that 10,000 eggs 
in one tench, 20,000 in one carp, are flung heed- 
lessly along the waste places of the deep. Life 
everywhere, even in the ether, and death everywhere 
dogging the steps of life ! 

LIII 

But Nature will not reply, but go on her own 
way, blind, relentless, undeviating in that eternal 
circle that is marked out for her, and 

hr 1 r Nature Silent, 

ose final purpose no man can rore- 

tell. " The one, far-off. Divine event " is shrouded 

in darkness which we cannot pierce until the New 

Heaven and the New Earth stand revealed, and 

imperfection rounds to perfection, and mortality 

clothes itself with immortality, and pain and sin 

and suffering are no more for ever. But now we 

only hear the rumbling of the machine, and see the 

pallid faces, the stricken hearts, child and corpse, 

cradle and bier ; and we almost hear the terrible 

words of St. Peter to the trembling Sapphira : 

" Behold the feet of them who have buried thy 

husband are at the door, and they shall carry thee 

out." What then ? Well, then, as we cannot stop 

the motions of the heavens, nor lay our hand upon 

Time to stay him ; as we are imperfect, and cannot 

be otherwise than we are, let us move forward with 

blind, unquestioning faith, and with the assurance 

that the All-Holy and Infinite Being has not set us 

here for the mere purpose of seeing us agonised 

over an unsolvable enigma. 



234 PARERGA 



LIV 

Just as I thought. Spring, like a curious woman 

as she is, had just forgotten herself, and had come 

peeping into and trespassing with 

eepo pnng. [^gj. j^^^j.^^j^jj^^i-gj^ ^^d flower-children 

upon the domain of Winter ; and the rude fellow, 
just awakened and alert, has whipped up all his 
grim apparitors, and ruthlessly and unchivalrously 
driven off the pretty intruder. Yesterday, Sunday, 
Boreas came thundering down from the northwest, 
driving before him in his war-chariot legions of 
arrowy sleet and snow ; and just allowing the fright- 
ened and pallid sun to look out on the shrinking 
primulas and snowdrops for a moment, and then 
blinding the whole landscape again with his showers 
of white arrows out of the blackened and threaten- 
ing sky. It was a horrible contrast to the weather 
we have had since Christmas, which, however, was 
unnatural and misplaced. I fear the beautiful Vir- 
gin Spring will not show her sweet face again until 
the " merry month of May." 



LV 

And yet I have seen Boreas and his thundering 

legions yesterday gloriously defied. Right beyond 

the river is a splendid field, of many 

Boreas defied. n j >.j_ tt r^i j 

acres, called the Horse Close ; and 
here, during the last twelve months, has been held 
every Sunday a tournament, or trial of strength, on 
Gaelic principles and rules, between football and 
hurling teams from every part of the surrounding 
country. It is a glorious and exhilarating sight; 



SPRING 



235 



and, like the little Irish boy who, when asked by 
the Inspector, not to define, but to give an example 
by way of illustration of the word " splendid," 
promptly answered, "A fight," so, if I am asked to 
illustrate the words " glorious and inspiring," I 
promptly reply, "A Gaelic tournament" ; for noth- 
ing since the old Isthmian and Olympian games 
has been seen to equal the energy and passion, the 
skill and science, the temper and self-control, of a 
modern Irish game. To see these fine young fel- 
lows, full of strength and vitality, braving all weath- 
ers, and testing every organ, nerve, and muscle in 
the pursuit of victory, is certainly enough to make 
an old man young again. 

LVI 

Yesterday I stood outside the ropes, a shivering 
but interested spectator. I had two overcoats, a 
thick muffler, and an umbrella, and 
yet I trembled with cold ; and there, 
a few yards away, were two or three dozen young 
fellows, with naked arms, naked heads, naked feet, 
and clad only in a light silken jersey and drawers. 
" Every man of these," I thought, " will be down 
with pneumonia to-morrow." But no ! in five 
minutes after the ball was spun, they were a great 
deal more comfortable than I. And one team was 
composed of city men, fresh from shops and coun- 
ters ! I refused to believe it. I inquired. The 
city team, as I suspected, was indeed composed of 
city men, but every one had been " raised " in the 
country, in the green fields and under blue skies. 
Another argument for those who cry, — oh, with so 
much truth if they knew it ! — " Back to the land ! 
back to the land ! " 



236 PARERGA 



LVII 

The following Sunday was still, but more in- 
tensely cold. There was a heavy rime frost on the 
trees : the air was filled with a purple 

A Tournament. ^ ^ r ^1 i, i.- i, • 

transparent tog, through which, as m 
a stereoscope, the naked branches, each with its 
pretty rime-coating, stood out in bold relief It was 
picturesque and beautiful beyond description, but 
the cold was too intense to be pleasant. And yet, 
under that fierce chill in the atmosphere, our young 
men stripped and fought fiercely for victory, utterly 
heedless of cold or danger, intent only on warding 
off the dreaded defeat. And here I saw a curious 
instance of the silent revolution through which we 
are unconsciously passing. The teams were appar- 
ently very unevenly matched, one team of country 
lads overtopping in stature and general physique 
the rather puny town boys who were opposed to 
them. The latter, however, made up by science 
what they lacked in physical strength, and very soon 
the game was on the side of David against Goliath. 
One of the Philistines hereat lost temper, and was 
clearly spoiling for a fight. A few times he broke 
the Draconian rules of the Gaelic Athletic Associa- 
tion, but the referee's back was turned to him and 
he escaped. 



LVII I 

Thus emboldened, he committed another flagrant 



Discipline. 



breach of the rules by rudely push- 
ing with his hand one of the opposite 
team. In an instant the referee's whistle was blown ; 



SPRING 237 



the ball was seized, and the whole field drew together. 
The referee took out his watch. 

" Who is captain of this man's team ? " he asked, 
pointing to the delinquent. 

" I am," said a young giant, stepping forward 
with folded arms. 

" Remove that man instantly from the field," said 
the referee. 

The captain demurred, and demanded expla- 
nations. 

" I give you three minutes to decide," quoth ref- 
eree, watch in hand, and unheeding the demand. 

The captain called his team together and con- 
sulted. 

" We can't play without him," was the decision. 

" Then I award the victory to the other team," 
said referee. 

And they put on their coats. 

Not another word. It was magnificent. 



LIX 

Fifty years ago, forty years ago, twenty years ago, 
that word would have been the signal for a faction 
fight that might range over twenty 

•L Ji_ 1 jrJ,A Disappointed 

parishes, and be prolonged trom ^^^ ^^ 
generation to generation. That day 
there was not a word. Another game was instantly 
in progress ; and I saw victors and vanquished leave 
the field together in terms of perfect amity. I was 
much amused at the consternation vividly depicted 
on the face of an old man, who had seen other things ; 
and who had as many marks and cicatrices on forehead 
and face as a German student. With the instinct 
of old traditions, he had evidently been expecting a 



238 PARERGA 



glorious fight. When he saw how things ended, he 
was deeply disgusted. He looked for some time 
into vacancy, as if calling up the ghosts of bygone 
days, and then sauntered sadly away, muttering : 

*' By gonnies ! What's this misfortunate counthry 
coming to, at all, at all ? " 



SPRING 239 



Section III 

LX 

I do not know what it is in these iron-gray March 
days, when the sky hangs low without rain, and the 
roads are white and hard as steel, and ^ . . 

, . , ,., 1 T I Associations. 

the east wind cuts like a knire, that 
makes them such mere mnemonics, such memory- 
haunters, that I always sit still in a kind of pleasing 
melancholy, and recall them, as they troop up, with 
a host of other memories, from the past. It is the 
season of hoops and tops and marbles for boys, nor 
have I forgotten their blessed associations. But one 
picture is ever coming up and forcing itself forward 
on the retina of memory every time 1 look out and 
watch the grey face of landscape or street. It is the 
picture of one such icy-cold, black, raw evening ; and 
the figures in the deserted and wind-swept street are 
those of an old man, holding in his shivering hand 
that of a little child; and their voices, the old qua- 
vering baritone and the shrill treble, come back to 
me ; and the old waves of pity and sorrow seem to 
be breaking and murmuring out of the hollow caves 
of the past. 

LXI 

I see this moment, as I saw with the sympathy of 
a child fifty years ago, the tall, bent figure of that 
old man, his long, grey, threadbare 
coat, through which the March winds 
were piercing, his pinched and worn features, his 
long, grey locks hanging down upon his shoulders. 
And his bony hands held the half-frozen fingers of 



240 PARERGA 



the child, as she, too, with her pinched and starved 
features, strove to elicit a few half-pence from the 
people before whose shops she was trilling out 
a melancholy duet about: "Rosalie, the Prairie- 
Flower." I remember how much I wondered, and 
saddened at the wonder, why the good folk around 
did not instantly bring in that hapless pair, and seat 
them at the hospitable fire, and fill them with good, 
warm food, and cheer them ; and, if they could 
not keep them for the night, at least send them 
on their way rejoicing. It seemed so easy, and I 
felt it would be such a luxury to comfort and greet 
those poor waifs, that I could not understand the 
public indifference, or the cold way in which the 
penny of charity was offered. I understand it better 
now; or rather, I do not, nor ever shall. 



LXII 

I found that Spring was in the fields to-day. I 

traced her virgin form everywhere. 1 tracked her 

„ . ,, „ footsteps in the steaming; earth, and 

Spring Idylls. , r^ , u i ^l j- J c 

where she shook the diamonds of 
the dew. I searched in all the cool and hollow 
shades, behind the speckled laurels; and I drew the 
curtains of the pine and feathered yew to see if she 
were lurking anywhere. From the next field a 
skylark soared and sang ; and a grey sea-gull who 
was wintering here beat with his heavy but uncum- 
bered wings his new-found way towards his pathless 
sea. I saw the green wave glistening in his eyes; 
and caught the perfume of the sea-brine dropped at 
every beat of pinion, and every exultant scream. 
The daisies opened their meek, patient eyes. It 
gladdened me to see them, though later on, I shall 



SPRING 241 



most likely shear them, as blots upon the beauty of 
the grass. Rosebuds were shyly unfolding their soft, 
silky petals — the cradles of the flowers that were 
waiting the hot sun. Yes ! though invisible, the 
virgin Spring was here ; for there was a soft and 
subtle perfume in the air as of new births and resur- 
rections. And then I heard the bleating of a lamb 
— ^not in the meadows by its mother's side, not 
couched on its daisy, dewy bed ; but in a hurdle 
along the highway, passing to its young death, the 
executioner walking heedlessly by its side. 

LXIII 

And it was seed-time. Young bees and butter- 
flies, exulting in their new and gorgeous panoplies, 
were flitting from pistil to stamen, 

c ° • -1 • 1 J • 1 Seed-Time. 

rrom stamen to pistil weighted with 
the seeds that were to fructify later on in purple 
flower or crimson fruit. It was the marriage of 
Nature — the bringing together of all her secret and 
mysterious powers, by processes unerring in their 
uniformity and infallible in their action, as if guided 
not by mechanical and purely dynamic powers, but 
by mind and sensibility, the thrill and throb of sen- 
tient things through which some spirit of awakening 
and creation pervaded. One glorious blackbird 
perched and swinging on the perilous top of the last 
shoot of a pine sang the epithalamium of Nature; 
and all beneath, in tree and shrub and garden-bed 
and grass, was palpitating under the new life, and 
throbbing with the exultant sense of new powers re- 
suscitated after their apparent wintry death. Let no 
one think there is no soul nor sensibility in nature. 
The mysterious power that " sleeps in the mineral, 



242 PARERGA 



dreams in the animal, wakens in man " operates too 
in the veins and capillaries of shrubs and plants. I 
shall never cut a flower again. 1 shall fear to see it 
bleed. 

LXIV 

I notice that pure and gentle things are also very 
graceful. There is a kind of slowness and sym- 
metry in their every movement, that 
Sness.^"'^ °^"" seems to be drawn on lines of beauty, 
because, after all, the essence of all 
perfection of harmony in sound and movement is 
reserve, and the gentle alone are reserved. There 
may be a studied grace in the forward or the inso- 
lent, or the proud ; but it sits there with a certain 
awkwardness, which is quite clear, notwithstanding 
all artificial poses and pretences. I hardly know 
anything more ridiculous than the assumption of 
good manners by an arrogant and haughty and im- 
perious man. They are so unnatural and uncouth 
that the creature knows it ; and tries to be jocular 
and interesting. He cannot remain in the golden 
region where gentleness and affability and charity 
are quite at home. The character so ill-suits him 
that he must shake it aside somehow ; and he does 
so by tastelessly drifting into the other extreme, for he 
feels it is easier to resume his sceptre and toga after 
masquerading for a moment in the cap and bells. 
The jesters at the dining-table are the most truc- 
ulent judges on the bench. 



SPRING 243 



LXV 

Here again is the marvellous similarity and kin- 
ship between man and nature. There is not in all 
her wide domain a more savage or 

., 1 u Man and Nature. 

merciless creature than the common 
house-spider or garden-spider. He is the very per- 
sonification of cunning and brute force. The stories 
of spiders descending the tubes of chandehers to 
hearken to music are amongst the exploded legends 
of science. And this creature, which has a certain 
savage splendour by reason of his merciless power, 
is the most awkward, ungainly, uncouth of insects 
in his courting and wooing. Nothing can be con- 
ceived more ridiculous than the attitudes, the cir- 
cling dances, the absurd display of charms in the 
male spider, when he tries to attract the notice of 
his female bride, if we except the presence of a 
hanging judge or unscrupulous financier in a ball- 
room, gyrating to the dreamy waltz-music of Strauss 
or Waldteufel. The only diflference is, that the 
captious irritability of the female spider often brings 
the wooing, and the wooer, to an abrupt termina- 
tion ; and history has not yet recorded the assassi- 
nation of a judge or stockbroker by a butterfly of 
fashion. 

LXVI 

This accounts for, and explains, what has always 
been to me a singular and quite unintelligible habit 
in the life of the philosopher Spinoza. . 

His minute biographer, his Boswell, 
has told us that sometimes, after long hours of 
deep and silent thought on the mysteries of crea- 



244 PARERGA 



tion, the philosopher used to find his recreation in 
setting spiders to fight with each other ; and that he 
used to enjoy the sport so much that tears ran 
down his cheeks with deUght. I always thought 
there was a certain bathos, a certain disproportion 
between the pursuits of the great thinker and such 
puerile sport, and between the profound philoso- 
pher and such cruelty. I have a strong suspicion 
that it was the ludicrous antics of the male spider in 
presence of his female charmer that amused the 
philosopher, who, with all his other acquirements, 
had a pretty deep knowledge of the laws that gov- 
ern the animal kingdom. And — it is only a rhe- 
torical question — did he see another comparison, 
an uncouth imitation in these lower forms of Ufe, 
of the equally absurd gestures and gyrations of 
that superior being who is hardly less remorseless 
or truculent than the spider? He had excellent 
reasons therefor. 

LXVII 

I find that all poets and philosophers are close 
observers of Nature through all her wonder-working. 

They like to be alone with her in her 
Nature^" solitude and silence, and to see the 

mute, marvellous operations that she 
carries on without haste, without rest, in all her 
cryptic laboratories. Things that escape the eye of 
the fickle and foolish, or those too deeply engrossed 
in themselves, are quite apparent to the poet's eye. 
He has an eye to admire; and Nature supplies the 
objects. He is prone to marvel ; and she supplies 
abundant opportunities. True, hers is the Isis-veil 
which no man can lift but her poet. To him she 
has no secrets, because she knows he is worthy of 
her confidence, and in the temple to which she in- 



SPRING 245 



vites him there is no danger of desecration. For 
reverence and the soul for worship are the first ele- 
ments of a poetic nature ; and the revelations of all 
the inner arcana, which science is slowly unveiling, 
and unravelling, and which make the mere scientist 
an irreverent and sacrilegious penetrator of deep 
mysteries, excite in the poetic mind wonder and 
admiration, then comparison, then induction, until 
he breaks forth into his hymnal of praise and thanks- 
giving towards that awful Intelligence which is seen 
in the atom and in the world, in the infusoria of a 
glass of water and the seraphic beings who stand 
before the Great White Throne. 



LXVIII 

I think it is one of the greatest charms in Tenny- 
son's poems — this minute and careful recording of 
the little things that make up the 

, - ° , , . \ Tennyson. 

miracle or nature, and their inter- 
relations with the world around them and the uni- 
verse. Thousands have seen the tiny dark heads 
on the ash-tree in Spring, and passed them by un- 
heeded, because so commonplace. They give the 
poet a simile: 

"As black as ashbuds in the month of March." 

There is no more usual sight than that of waterfowl 
standing at certain times of the day on one leg. 
Nothing could be more ordinary or prosaic. Yet 
the poet takes the fact and builds it into a symbol. 
And he has watched how the skylark sweeps down 
sideways to his nest ; and he has seen the resem- 
blance between the hyacinth and the chestnut's 
milky blossoms. The mighty prophet of old spoke 



246 PARERGA 



of the cedars of Lebanon and the hyssop that grows 
on the wall. Tennyson seizes the idea and builds 
a philosophy out of it. 



LXIX 

It is a small thing, and a small poem ; yet I am 
told the place in the New Forest is shown where the 
. ^ , . poet paused and wondered and grew 

A Great Lyric. f . *^ . , , . . & 

mspired; and that visitors go out 
from London to see it. How many thousands 
passed by that and similar places, and never dreamed 
of noticing such a trivial thing. Who is there that 
has not stood on the seashore, and seen the full- 
sailed ship sailing by, and heard the boy shouting 
with his sister, and heard the sailor lad swinging and 
singing in his boat.^ But that ordinary landscape 
was never transfigured into a kind of pathetic 
sublimity until the poet seized it and wrote that 
lyric, which will be said and sung in human hearts 
when London is Tadmor in the wilderness. 



LXX 

A few days ago I had some little business in the 
old seaport town where I spent all my childhood's 

holidays. The place is endeared to 
Uons.^^°'^™^' "^^ ^y "^^^y memories ; and its every 

feature is familiarised by frequent, 
almost annual visits in summer-time. Every cliff, 
every crevice, every boulder, seems an old acquaint- 
ance ; but, as we all experience, the general aspect has 
changed to eyes almost grown weary from looking 
out on the strange and mysterious world. I might 
say that every year marks a new change in the land- 



SPRING 247 



scape. Nature has worked, in her own silent, mys- 
terious manner, vast transformations in sea and 
shore ; and the mind, that has such a creative and 
formative effect on the landscape, has created its 
own changes, intensified as the years roll by to 
eternity. Sights and sounds that thrilled the boy 
of seven have lost their magic for the man of fifty. 
The heart leaps no more at the sound of the cata- 
racts on the beach ; and the odour of the brine falls 
dead on senses dulled by the friction of the years. I 
have become like one of these fisher-boys hauling in 
their nets out yonder ; or like my driver, who takes 
a utilitarian view of things, and regrets that there 
should be so much arable land wasted beneath that 
infinite ocean. 



LXXI 

Age has compensations, I suppose ; but nothing 
can give back " the wild freshness of morning." 
This day, however, for just a moment, 
the old enchantment, the thrill of ;;j3^;Sn'ng/" 
boyhood, came back for a moment. 
I had a few minutes to wait for my train when re- 
turning, and I strolled along the beach in front of 
the railway station, — along the firm, white, glisten- 
ing sands, that are more dear than the marble mo- 
saics of palaces, or the parqueterie of the sanctuaries 
of fashion and folly. There was no one there ex- 
cept myself. Far away along the beach two or three 
children were building sand-castles ; and one old 
gentleman, probably a retired peace-officer or civil 
servant, sat quietly on one of the benches far down 
on the promenade. And there was great silence, 
broken only by the lisp of the small, creeping waves 



248 PARERGA 



that fawned upon the shore. I was walking slowly 
with head bent down, when suddenly my eye caught 
one of those tiny shells, which long, long ago we 
prized so much as decorations for our cardboard 
boxes, and which from their strong resemblance to 
a little grain of wheat, we used to call " wheaten 
shells." I took it up, and in an instant the drop- 
scene of fifty years rolled up, and I saw down the 
long vista of time the scenes of childhood, long 
faded, but not obliterated from memory. 

LXXII 

The great sand-cliff that terminates the prom- 
enade jutted out then far into the ocean. There 
„ „ . were ice-houses for the preservation 

Recollections. r r 1 1 j 1 • • 1 

or fish here and there in its sandy 
crevices. Beneath it, where now the deep sea rolls, 
was a row of whitewashed cottages. I see them 
now in the light of the sinking sun, the nets drying 
on the cliff behind, the black boats dotting the shore 
and shining resplendent in the evening refulgence, 
the dead fish here and there on the strand, great 
troops of summer visitors gaily promenading the 
beach and shading their eyes from the sinking sun, 
a group of fisher-maidens gathered around a half- 
simpleton, — a woman who in her feeble way is trying 
to imitate for their amusement the deep ding-dong 
of the great bell at Melleray, and the chanting of 
the monks. But it is not only the vision, but the 
very odours of the sea and shore are called up. The 
strong smell of tarred ropes, the scent of the tangled 
and half-rotten seaweed, and the strong, pungent 
odour of valerian, which grew in purple profusion 
on wall and cliff — all are here. There is the vista 



SPRING 249 



and the vision; but the one thing that made it 
delectable is not there : the words rise involuntarily 
to my lips : 

*' But oh ! for the touch of a vanished hand 
And the sound of a voice that is still ! ' * 



LXXIII 

The bell rings. Down drops the curtain again. 
The scene takes on its every-day aspect, — sea, sky, 
and greyness and desolation. The 

re 11 J ^ JT Sentiment. 

nrty years are blotted out; and 1 am 
a second-class passenger, reading the morning paper 
in a railway carriage, and far out in the twentieth 
century. But I have kept that little wheaten shell 
as a talisman ; and sometimes, perhaps, like the kin- 
dred " Sesame" of the Arabian Nights, it may open 
the rich caves of the past and show its treasures, 
the dearest being that little touch of sentiment which 
I am not ashamed to avow, and which comes all too 
seldom into my present life. I know that some 
people decry sentimentality, — good, pious people, 
— on the score of religion ; fashionable people be- 
cause it is emotional ; and emotion is the one unfor- 
givable sin. The former forget that shortest, but 
sweetest text in all Holy Writ: And Jesus wept! The 
latter might know that it is this very emotionalism 
that marks them off from the animal creation, inas- 
much as it is neither instinct nor passion, nor sensuous 
nor base, but only some higher element, consecrated 
by a memory tenacious of what is tender and rever- 
ent, and softened down by that sense of dependence 
or protection that is the highest bond of social life. 
Oh, yes ! Thank God for our poets ; and thanks, O 



250 PARERGA 



shade of Tennyson, for that line, no matter how sad 
it may be : 

** The tender grace of a day that is dead 
Shall never come back to me." 



LXXIV 

Some one, writing many years ago, I think in 
MacMillaris Magazine, declared that Tennyson was 
. . . ^ an artist before he became a poet. 

An Artist first. t r i • i i i 

If this be true, he never became a 
poet, if we are to accept the time-honoured maxim : 
Poeta nascitur, non fit. And such may possibly be 
the verdict of that posterity that is the most merci- 
less of critics. Certainly Tennyson lacks that spon- 
taneity of idea and expression, that unconscious and 
unstudied adaptation of words to ideas, that we are 
accustomed to associate with great poetry. The fact 
alone that he took years to elaborate a single poem 
tells forcibly for his rigid sense of artistic perfection, 
but tells with equal force against inspiration. For 
if there be one thing more certain than another it is 
this, that in all great poetry there is inspiration. 
Whence it comes, or whither it tends, we know not. 
It cannot be solicited. It cannot be coerced. A 
writer may strain the pia mater of his brain until it 
cracks, without evolving anything but crudities and 
commonplaces, that are not worth the ink wherewith 
they are written. He may study great compositions, 
and call on all the Muses in turn to assist him, and 
remain as barren as the sea. And, on the other 
hand, suddenly and without forethought, without 
seeking, without forcing, he may be visited by an 
idea, winged with language so perfect, so beautiful, 
that it lifts him off his feet with delight and 
enthusiasm. 



SPRING 



251 



LXXV 

One can easily imagine such moments in the 
lives of Shelley and Keats, as the former swung in 
his boat on the Arno, or lay on the 
burning roofs of Pisa, and the latter "i^'i^ughts 
went dreaming in Devonshire lanes 
down near Torbay, whilst his life essence was con- 
suming away in his dread disease. A few times, too, 
the vision came to prosaic Wordsworth, as when 
he wrote that second stanza in his immortal Ode, 
or the " Lines on Tintern Abbey." And Tenny- 
son, too, had such visitings when he wrote that most 
perfect lyric, " Break, break, break on thy cold, grey 
stones, O Sea ! " or " Tears, idle tears, I know not 
what you mean." But most of his verses, espe- 
cially in " In Memoriam," show marks of the file 
and chisel, little mortisings of words to suit rhymes, 
banal ideas wrought into high-sounding phrases, or 
wrapped in involutions that " conceal, or but half- 
reveal," to use his own expression, " the soul 
within." 

LXXVI 

Hence, though it is severe, one cannot dissent 
altogether from that verdict of Taine's on the great 
elegy : 

° Taine on 

^, _ , , , , Tennyson. 

" Cold and monotonous, and too pret- 
tily arranged. He goes into mourning, but like a correct 
gentleman, with brand-new gloves, and wipes away his tears 
with a cambric handkerchief." 

And to one who carefully studies the "In Me- 
moriam," line by line, it is quite easy to perceive 



252 PARERGA 



how the poet laid down his mosaic, bit by bit, piece 
by piece ; how he rhymed his lines, and then filled 
them in ; and how the inevitable bathos is quite 
perceptible, only that it is supported and lifted up 
by the strength of a preceding or subsequent line. 
We miss the " lyrical madness," — that is, the 
spontaneity of Shelley and the earlier English sing- 
ers, — the bird-like song, that is not fitted between 
bars, nor subdued by keys, but wells forth in a flood 
of music under the divine intoxication. But, when 
all this is said, there remains the universal and in- 
expugnable verdict that, as a consummate word- 
painter, or etcher, Tennyson has never had an equal. 
Some critics, clinging to old traditions, and unwil- 
ling to see any imperfection in their idol, put Shak- 
speare first even here. But that will not do. There 
is not one Shakspearean lyric comparable for a mo- 
ment with many in Tennyson, or any in Shelley. 



LXXVII 

The first impression in Tennyson's art comes 
from his colouring, — the atmosphere in which 
all scenes, incidents, and characters 
Corouring'^ move. This is as distinct and pecul- 

iar as the well-known pale or golden 
ochre in which Turner wraps towers, and ships, and 
palaces, and Roman river, and Dutch quay, and 
English estuary. It is as characteristic as the cen- 
tral spot of light in every one of Rembrandt's paint- 
ings. And if I were asked to concentrate in one 
word the expression of that colouring, I would use 
the word " fenny." The Lincolnshire fens, the long 
levels and the marshes, the poplars and the reeds, 
the whole grey landscape, bounded by the sand 



SPRING 



253 



wastes and the blue deserts of the North Sea, seem 
to have haunted Tennyson through life, so deep are 
the impressions of childhood, so long do we bear 
with us the memory of our early environments. Of 
course, this became smoothed out into the more 
civilised features of grassy knolls and downs, and 
trim English gardens, and all the sweet civilities of 
places brought nearer to the heart of modern life. 
But Tennyson's muse always haunts the level plains, 
where lie the cottage, the manse, the parsonage 
and the mill, where the stream wanders slowly and 
heavily through meadows rich in grass and flowers, 
and where the unheroic, prosaic English folk live 
out their dull and peaceful and monotonous lives. 



LXXVIII 

But he never leaps to the heights of mountains, 
nor touches great sublimities. The grander aspects 
of nature, and the more tragic or ^^ ^ ^,. 

, - . , , ^ , . , ° Not Sublime. 

lofty ideals or humanity, he cannot 
reach. And hence, when he unwisely attempted 
the drama, and when he ascended to prehistoric or 
legendary ages to find the heroic, he failed utterly. 
There is a universal consensus of opinion that the 
period of Tennyson's decadence dates from " The 
Idylls of the King." It is quite intelligible. He 
had not dramatic power. He was too impassive, 
although irritable ; too unimpassioned, though im- 
aginative ; too fine and artistic for great situations 
and great bursts of human feeling. He lacked the 
abandon^ the total yielding up and effacement of self 
in painting great situations, or delineating great, 
passionate character. He was too much of the 
English gentleman, although he neither dressed nor 



254 PARERGA 



spoke in the correct English manner. What could 
he know of Enceladus in Etna^ — the fierce tortures 
of humanity under the volcanic forces of human 
passion ? 

LXXIX 

But it is only reasonable to say that the very 
supremacy of Tennyson as artist and word-painter 
is all the more remarkable because 
n/ss^"*^ Artless- ^^ ^]^^ ^^^^ duiness and prosaic condi- 
tions of the subjects that he wrought 
into such marvellous verse. To take the common- 
place, and transfigure it, is surely the triumph as 
well as the vocation of the artist. And here Ten- 
nyson soars infinitely higher than the poet who went 
back to Nature for his subjects, and whom Tenny- 
son, in the selection and ordering of his places and 
persons, so closely resembles. For there cannot be 
a doubt that, in "The Miller's Daughter" and such 
like pretty idylls, he was following the lead of 
Wordsworth, and finding in simple themes subjects 
for great verse. But what a difference between the 
"art" of Tennyson and the " artlessness," which 
was not art, of Wordsworth ! Both affect a good 
deal of exactness in description, but here they part. 



LXXX 

Wordsworth could actually bring himself to 
write : 

*• But say, what was it ? Thought of fear ! 
^°J^^sworth's Well may ye tremble when ye hear ! 

— A household tub, like one of those 
Which women use to wash their clothes. 
This carried the blind boy." 



SPRING 255 



And: 

*• Few months of life he has in store. 
As he to you will tell ; 
For still the more he works, the more 
Do his weak ankles swell." 

Strange to say, he was not utterly damned for such 
utter baldness and banality. And, stranger still, he 
died in the belief that this was poetry ! 

On the other hand, Tennyson is equally exact, 
equally minute, equally simple in his descriptions, 
as in the lines : 

" With blackest moss the flower-pots 

Were thickly crusted, one and all ; 
The rusted nails fell from the knots 

That held the pear to the garden wall ; 
The broken sheds looked sad and strange, 

Unlifted was the clinking latch ; 

Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
Upon the lonely moated grange. 

All day within tiie dreamy house 
The doors upon their hinges creaked ; 

The bluefly sang in the pane ; the mouse 
Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked. 

Or from the crevice peered about." 

Here is the cataloguing of very ordinary prosaic 
conditions and events, but here, at once you say, is 
good poetry, as in Wordsworth's lines you say at 
once. Here is bad prose. Where comes in the 
difference ? 

In this, that Tennyson's art is suggestive. He 
creates an atmosphere, grey, gloomy, and sad ; he 
creates a landscape, lonely, desolate, abandoned ; 
he creates a figure, pining, melancholy, deserted ; 
and he paints in every detail, no matter how mi- 
nute, to heighten the effect. The rusty nail, the 



256 PARERGA 



black flower-pots, the skurrying mice, all throw a 
colour of uniformity on the picture ; and that pic- 
ture, one of abandonment and desolation. 



LXXXI 

So, too, in the greatest of his lyrics, he makes the 

sea breaking on " cold, grey stones." The quiet, 

still aspect of the scene : the fisher- 

Word-Paintingr. > 1 -i 1 1 • 1 1 

man s children playmg on the strand; 
the sailor lad in his solitary boat on the bay ; and, 
finally, the full-bosomed, stately ships, moving si- 
lently on through the ocean path to the hidden 
haven behind the cliff, — picture, framing, and all, — 
tell the mute story of a vanished life, and the deep, 
hollow gulf left in the heart of the survivor. In 
that department of poetry — the casting on the can- 
vas of emotions and feelings, and making dumb 
Nature speak the thoughts of the one being that is 
in it but not of it, because he belongs by right to a 
higher sphere — Tennyson seems to have no rival. 
Sometimes Milton's influence is supposed to be 
traced in this word-painting ; but I doubt if pas- 
sages could be quoted from Milton to exemplify 
the passions that agitate humanity, and show their 
representations in nature so perfectly, so beautifully, 
as in Tennyson. 

LXXXI I 

How far the genius of Tennyson is original is 

one of those questions that do not seek an answer 

nowadays, because it is conceded that 

^ ^' there is no such thing as absolute 

originality amongst poets. Milton plagiarised. 

Shakspeare not only built his immortal dramas 



SPRING 257 



on existing plays, but borrowed freely characters 
from Plutarch, and thoughts, ideas, expressions, 
from Montaigne. And if we note the following 
very striking coincidences between Tennyson and 
other poets, it is not with a view of depreciating 
his worth or lessening his fame. The former is 
unquestioned ; the latter secure, even though the 
immense popularity he enjoyed during life has 
sadly diminished since his death. And, besides, it 
is an axiom that genius has a right to select and 
adapt, merely adding the splendours of new forms 
to older phrases and ideas. 

LXXXIII 

But the following parallels are curious and 
interesting : 

I 

A wind arose among the pines ; it shook 
pfaiariJm°* '^^^ clinging music from their boughs, and then 

Low, faint, sweet sounds, like the farewell of 

ghosts. 
Were heard: "Oh, follow, follow, follow me! " 
Shelley : Prometheus Unbound, 

zd Act, 1st Scene. 

But while I meditated 
A wind arose, and rushed upon the south. 
And shook the songs, the whispers and the shrieks 
Of the wild woods together, and a voice 
Went with it : "Follow, follow ; thou shalt win! " 

Tennyson : The Princess, Part I., line 25. 

II 

I sing, but as the linnet sings 
That on the green bough dwelleth. 

Goethe : Harper's Song in Wilhelm Meister. 
17 



258 PARERGA 



I do but sing, because I must ; 
And pipe, but as the linnets sing. 

Tennyson : In Memoriam. 

Ill 

I had felt some early stirrings of ambition ; but they were 
the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls 
of his cave. 

Robert Burns : Letter to Dr. Moore. 

So dark a forethought rolled around his brain 
As on a dull day in an ocean cave 
The blind wave feelmg round his long seahall 
In silence. 

Tennyson : Merlin and Vivien. 

IV 

In dreams you pursue the beast, and clamour 
Like a dog, who never leaves off the care of toil. 

-^schylus : The Furies. 

Like a dog he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the 
wall. 

Tennyson : Locksley Hall. 



When forms beloved in visions of the night 
With changeful aspect mock our grasp and sweep 
On noiseless wings adown the path of sleep, 

-^schylus : Agamemnon, 400. 

Tears of a widower, when he sees 
A late lost form that sleep reveals. 
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels 
Her place is empty, fall like these. 

Tennyson : In Memoriam. 

VI 

He who for love has undergone 

The worst that can befall. 
Is happier thousandfold than one 

Who never loved at all. 

Lord Houghton's Poems. 



SPRING 259 



'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 

Tennyson : In Memoriam. 

He who has never sought Friendship or Love is a thousand 
times poorer than he who has lost both. 

Jean P. Richter : Titan, Cycle 22. 

VII 

No greater grief than to remember days 
Of joy, when misery is at hand. 

Dante. 

A sorrow's crown of sorrow 
Is remembering happier things. 

Tennyson.. 

LXXXIV 

These are trifles — mere adaptations, perhaps un- 
consciously made. For I do not think that a supreme 
artist Hke Tennyson would con- 

, , ^ , 1 r Adaptations. 

sciously reproduce the very words or 

others, as he has done in some of the cases quoted, 

and still more remarkably in the lines : 

** And over those mysterious eyes 

The bar of Michael Angelo. " 

This latter expression is so peculiar that it had be- 
come, even in Tennyson's lifetime, a subject for 
much questioning and commentary. The expression 
is a Coleridgean one,^ for Coleridge was not only 
the greatest intellectual giant that England has seen, 
since Bacon sank in disgrace, but the greatest word- 

1 " A few, whose eyes were bright, and either piercing or steady, 
and whose ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridgelike, above the 
eyebrows, bespoke observation, followed by meditative thought" 
(Allegoric Vision). 



26o PARERGA 



artist since Shakspeare laid aside his pen, and took 
to speculations. If there be one pen-portrait more 
annoying than another in that dark gallery of Car- 
lyle's " Reminiscences," it is the cruel and distorted 
picture he has given us of Charles Lamb ; and his 
admirable " Life of John Sterling," I mean admirable 
as a biography, is certainly largely spoiled by that 
irreverent and fantastic portrait of Coleridge at 
Highgate. 

LXXXV 

But to return to Tennyson. 

There is no author the progress of whose mind 
can be so easily followed in his books. It is true 
that most writers reveal themselves 
Progress^ in their writings ; but in Tennyson's 

case, one can follow him, step by step, 
from the crudities of early compositions to the pessi- 
mism of advanced life, and even to that more or less 
Christian valedictory, " Crossing the Bar." It is quite 
clear, for example, that he set out in his profession 
with the sole idea of stringing together musical words 
without meaning. The influence of Poe with his 
jingling " Raven " and " Bells " had crossed the At- 
lantic. " The Raven " was the rage of London 
drawing-rooms ; and its rhythm and despair appear 
to have aff^ected Tennyson. There is an effemi- 
nacy about his early rhymes, even about the names 
of his Dulcineas, that seems childish in the light of 
his after-jeremiads. Was he training his ear, and 
moulding his notes for the full-throated song of 
after-days? Or was he merely writing nonsense- 
verses to train his hand and pen ? 



SPRING 261 



LXXXVI 

The following lines, wisely suppressed amongst 
his collected works, would appear to 

, . ^ ^ Juveniha. 

suggest this : 

" A dark, Indian maiden. 

Warbling in the bloom' d liana. 
Stepping lightly flower-laden 

By the crimson-eyed anana. 
Wantoning in orange-groves. 
Bathing in the slumb'rous coves. 
In the cocoa-shadowed coves. 

Of sunbright Xaraguay, 
Who was so happy as Anacaona, 

The beauty of Espagnola, 
The golden flower of Hayti ?" 

The swiftness with which he got away from these 
gardens of the Hesperides, with their Orianas, and 
Marianas, and Clara Vere de Veres, into the shock 
and tumult of modern thought, can only be attrib- 
uted to those portentous conversations which he 
held with Carlyle in the tobacco-laden cloudland of 
that Chelsea garden. Who would have thought 
that these two young men, hidden there beneath the 
rude wall of that London backyard, and smoking 
until the dawn rose red above the roofs of London, 
could so far pervade and influence all modern 
thought ? 

LXXXVI I 

How easily I drift into these little monologues 
on Tennyson and Carlyle ! It is the influence 
of Spring — Spring, with its tender, ^ ., . 
silky toliage, its songs of birds, its 
uplifting of skies, its revelations of the Infinite 



262 PARERGA 



Azure; all of which remind me of the day beneath 
the old grey Geraldine keep of Maynooth, when I 
heard two cassock-clad students discussing these two 
names, and debating, as they rolled out line after 
line from " Locksley Hall " whether in the second 
stanza : 

" 'T is the place, and all around it ; as of old the curlews call. 
Dreary gleams around the moorland, flying over Locksley Hall," 

the word "gleams" is a noun, placed in apposition 
to " curlews," as if the curlews* flight made sombre 
shadows across the colourless landscape, or whether 
it was a verb with its nominative " moorland." I 
only knew that it was the music sank into my soul. 
It was the happy springtime, and it was youth, 
which cares little for sense whilst it yields to the 
fascination of sound. 

*' Oh, Gioventu ! 
Oh, Primavera, gioventu dell' anno ! 
Oh, Gioventu, primavera della vita ! " 



I 



fart $r 

SUMMER 



SUMMER 

Section I 

I 

I CANNOT help thinking that most of the errors 
and foibles of humanity arise from the idea, not 
yet abandoned, that this earth is the 
centre of the universe, and man the ?h|o?y °""*"'' 
apex of creation. The geocentric 
theory has never been really banished from the 
minds of men. Astronomers have disproved it; 
and, although it has had a resurrection amongst 
scientists in our day, owing to the advocacy of 
Professor Wallace and others, all the conclusions 
of induction on the one hand, and analogy on the 
other, reduce the theory, not only to the verge of 
impossibility, but even to the domain of absurdity. 
The very idea that this awful and ineffable creation 
was fashioned and formed for man, an ephemeral 
unit on this planet, is quite unintelligible. And 
yet, in actual life, it is the delusion under which 
all men suffer. In religious life, through a species 
of mock humility, men will speak of themselves as 
"worms of the earth"; in science, we are told we 
are but infinitesimal parasites on an infinitesimal 
atom in space. In reality, we hug the delusion 
of the poet: 



266 PARERGA 



"What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! 
How infinite in faculty ! in form and moving how express 
and admirable ! In action, how like an angel ! in apprehen- 
sion, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon 
of animals ! " 

It is only just to Hamlet to add : 

" Yet, what to me is this quintessence of dust ? " 

II 

For, if men did really believe all that science and 
reason reveal about their utter nothingness, how 

could they entertain that terrific pride 
G^dsT"^" ^^ ^^ that might sit well on the brow of 

one of Milton's fallen archangels, but 
is only ridiculous and laughable on such an ephem- 
eral being as man ? All pomp, all pride, all majesty ; 
all these studied obeisances and ceremonies, which 
are common to savagery and civilisation ; all this 
artificial elevation of one poor scraggy mote above 
another; all this enthronement of imbecility and 
vice, of which you read in every page of history ; 
all this power over his fellow-creatures lodged in 
the hands of one man, king, magistrate, praetor, 
consul; all this adulation and worship and fear; 
nay, all this foolish love and amorous antics, this 
straining of metaphors to express adoration, — what 
is it all but the result of a conviction, disproved by 
science, but for ever revived by vanity, that "Ye 
shall be as gods ! " is the final pause and ultimate 
issue in that slow, deliberate, but magnificent pro- 
cess, called the evolution of the species towards 
some hidden but realisable ideal? 



SUMMER 267 



III 

I remember some years ago, when the tremendous 
truth that underlies Carlyle's clothes-philosophy 
burst upon me, through one of those 
object-lessons that seem necessary pi5\osophy. 
from time to time to disenchant us 
from that morbid condition of delusion in which we 
spend half our lives. It was at Droitwich, in Eng- 
land, a place famous for its brine-baths, a specific for 
every kind of gouty and rheumatic disorder. There 
was an immense swimming-bath, which was much 
frequented in the afternoon of each day. It was a 
study to see millionaires, capitalists, statesmen, gen- 
erals, drive up in their carriages, alight, pause, as if 
to demand the homage of the world for their splen- 
did equipages, their costly garments, their jewellery, 
their general majesty ; and then, ten minutes later, 
to see them a sprawling mass of humanity in the 
swimming-bath, — swollen limbs, cadaverous and 
ghastly bodies, flinging out their white arms and 
legs, — a kind of pale-green reptile beneath the thick 
and brackish brine. Every instant I thought I 
could hear the Aristophanic chorus : 

Brek - ek - ek - ex ! 

Brek - ek - ek - ex ! 

Koax - koax ! 

Except in size, there was nothing to distinguish 
them from a shoal of frogs in a swamp some torrid 
night in the early Summer. 



268 PARERGA 



IV 

Would not men be a little more humble and 
pious, a little more tolerant and tolerable, if they 
understood their utter littleness and 
insignificance ? The whole history 
of this poor planet from its pleiocene or miocene pe- 
riods, from its amphibia and saurians, down to the 
last man and the crack of doom is of no more con- 
sequence than the flashing and extinction of a meteor 
in the sky on a November night. Looking back 
upon the slender span of an individual life, one 
needs all the strength and inspiration of faith and 
reason combined to be convinced that it is aught 
but a dream, — a kind of phantasmagoria, or illu- 
sion, raised by some potent, but malefic magician, 
to cheat us into the transient joys and sorrows that 
go to make up the hallucinations of days or years. 
AH is so rapid, so transient, so fleeting ; and all the 
incidents that go to make up the daily delusion are 
so insignificant, even though they appear almost 
tragic in sublimity or severity at the time, that the 
only worthy record of man's history seems com- 
pressed into the words of that ancient sage : 

" De utero translatus in tumuium." 

" Like the lives of leaves are the lives of men," 
said Homer. And as the lives of men, so is the 
history of mankind, — the record of a transient and 
puny race on a planet, which was but an ephemera 
in space. 



SUMMER 269 



All this is rigidly if terribly true, yet we must 
not look too closely at it, if we are to take a rational 
and profitable view of our human 
lives. We must accept facts ; and °^ "^^ ^' 
try to understand that we cannot make ourselves 
other than what we are. It is not the problem of 
other existences, but of our own that we have to 
solve. And we have to accept our limitations 
humbly and resignedly in the belief that somehow 
and somewhere they will disappear ; and the broader 
expanses of another and larger existence will open 
up grandly before us — the theatre of a greater 
life. It is unwise to fret and fume because seraphic 
intelligences are not ours ; nor is it ours as yet to 
stand day and night before the Great White Throne, 
with no purpose in existence but unending happiness 
and unending adoration. The fact that we can rise 
above our low levels, where one hears only the 
marsh-music of creatures in a state of transition 
from reptile to angel, and dream of loftier things, is 
a pledge of their realisation. But we must not hurry 
on the slow processes of suns ; nor wear out in un- 
happy discontent the years that are given for that 
great, if tedious evolution. 

VI 

Neither must we look too closely at our common 
human nature. Let the artists say what they please 
about "the human form divine," the 
draped figure is nobler than the un- cimp^romise. 
draped. We need delusions. We 
dare not examine the realities of life too closely. 
Imperfect ourselves, we demand perfection ; and 



270 PARERGA 



reason says it is a bootless task, a fruitless pursuit ; 
that nature is not flawless ; and that to examine 
microscopically what it presents, is to submit our- 
selves to disillusion. Let us hug our fancies ; and 
clothing all things in the rich habiliments of delu- 
sions created by habit, let us throw the rose colours 
of imagination athwart the lineaments and features 
revealed all too boldly and sadly under the white 
light of reason or experience. Life is all compro- 
mise; and we must hoodwink the too daring and 
too honest efforts of the single eye of observation 
and intellect, lest we should sink discouraged by its 
revelations. 

VII 

In the same way, we must not expect to find the 
counterpart of our great ideas of moral excellence in 
„ „ , . daily life. He who seeks perfection 

No Perfection. . ^ r- j -n /-j tt 

m a mend will never find one. He 
who has found a friend must take him with all his 
flaws and faults, or lose him for ever. And day by 
day, and every day, he must throw the cloak of 
toleration and forgiveness over many things which, 
if they are to be pardonable in himself, he must 
strive to regard as venial in others. All this means 
the pain of clasping shadows, the torture of unde- 
ception, the anguish of finding beneath the fairy 
domino a death's-head, and beneath the purple 
and fine linen of a Dives the skeleton that hides 
everywhere. But life is only tolerable by such illu- 
sions. The world's work would come to a stand- 
still, if we meditated too much on death ; and we 
should lose all faith and hope for humanity, if we 
examined the microcosm too closely. It is difficult 
to say whether it is all a tragedy or a comedy ; but 



SUMMER 



271 



we had better keep masked under our vizards to 
the end of the last act. Then only shall the eternal 
question be decided : 

** Fleat Heraclitus, an rideat Democritus ?" 

** Shall Heraclitus weep, or Democritus laugh?" 

VIII 

But, away with these gloomy thoughts. I fear I 
have drifted into them through the climatic influ- 
ences of dark days, east winds, and 
showers that have more of Hyper- fnmlences. 
borean fierceness than the promise 
of gentle fecundity in April. And so sensitive is 
the exposed plate of the human imagination, I fear, 
too, that my reading of late has been amongst 
authors, who, with terrible realism, take a despond- 
ent view of this poor humanity of ours struggling 
onwards towards its goal. It does not answer well 
for Democritus to sit in his garden, book on knee, 
and with the sad remnants of dissected beasts all 
around him. It is not well to anatomise too much. 
If the results are exact and scientific, the auguries 
are unfavourable. And it is an ill day for any 
thinker, when he rises up from a contemplation of 
his species, and exclaims, as Carlyle did, when his 
attention was called to the glories of the celestial 
hemisphere: " Eh, gentlemen, 'tis a sad sight ! " 

IX 

But let us take Wordsworth's invitation : 

•* Up ! up ! my friend, and clear your looks ; 

Why all this toil and trouble? Sunny Thoughts. 

Up ! up ! my friend, and quit your books. 
Or surely you '11 grow double ! " 



272 PARERGA 



and go out into the sunny, warm air, and look at 
all the varied beautiful things mother Nature spreads 
out before us for our delectation, and listen to the 
woodland music poured around us from copse and 
thicket, wood and tree ; and let it sink into our 
hearts, and bring sweetness and beauty there, and 
a sense of the greatness instead of the insignificance 
of things. 

"Sweet is the love which Nature brings ; 
Our meddling intellect 
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things. 
We murder to dissect." 

You see, then, it is the intellect, the meddling 
intellect, the all-comprehensive intellect, the insa- 
tiable intellect, ever seeking the reasons of things, 
ever probing into the arcana of nature, so that no 
nook or corner of the universe shall be unprofaned ; 
and yet the intellect, that Nature is ever mocking 
by her subtleties, as children mock the blinded man 
in Blind Man's Buff, — it is this intellect that stifles 
emotion, and becomes the unhappy cause of half 
our infelicities here below. 



Happy is the man who takes Nature as he finds 

her ; who is content with the green fields, with 

their tapestries of flowers, without 

Mother Nature. , . ^ , r i 

searchmg, at the cost or so much 
beauty, the records of the ages in the stone monu- 
ments beneath ; who sees suns setting behind the 
purple seas, and watches the gleam of a departing 
ship, without a knowledge of astronomy or naviga- 
tion ; who cannot call the flowers by their hard names, 
nor muster transfixed butterflies beneath the glasses 



SUMMER 273 



in his specimen boxes ; but who knows that the 
shy violet smells sweetly, and that the airy, painted 
papilio is a pretty, flashing radiance amongst his 
garden-beds ; and who is content to dwell on the 
flower faces of little children, and the godlike linea- 
ments of the immortals of his race, without seeing 
the deformities of the multitude, or scrutinising too 
closely the flaws and spots which, after all, only 
mark the chequered history of a fallen or imperfect 
race. 

XI 

And here suddenly there rise up before me two 
lofty figures, which alone, by reason of their gran- 
deur and sublimity, would redeem a o 1 • 
race more deeply fallen than ours, — 
Michael Angelo and Dante. They are the Moses 
and Aaron of the pilgrimage of humanity through 
the desert, — the Calpe and Abila, twin pillars, 
marking the narrow boundaries of this inland sea 
of existence, and pointing to the vast ocean of eter- 
nity beyond. The greatness of their work is lost 
in the sublimity of their characters. Neither of 
them was quite satisfied with the results of his 
labours. Their ideals were too great. They sought 
after Infinite Beauty, like their great compeer in 
philosophy, St. Augustine, and found it not in 
earthly things, for neither Vittoria Colonna nor 
Beatrice, the objects of their respectful admiration, 
was able to satisfy their exorbitant demands. And 
hence neither Michael Angelo nor Dante has 
touched the ideal of perfect beauty in his works. 
They fell short of the greatness of their design ; 
and instead of perfect beauty, they only achieved 
majesty. 



274 PARERGA 



XII 

For " majesty " is the only word that can charac- 
terise their genius. Those mighty figures that are 
„, . ,. . flung pell-mell on the ceilings and 

Their Majesty. ii '^r i o- • r^\ i i 

walls or the bistme Chapel, that 
Moses, more sublime than the Jupiter of the 
Greek, that lofty dome, which is but the inner 
and concentric circle of the infinite; and, on the 
other hand, those terrible creations of the Floren- 
tine, vast, naked, uncouth, like damned and de- 
throned Titans, and even the celestial beings he 
has evoked from the rich treasury of imagination, — 
what are all these but the effort to bring down to 
human forms and experience some dreams of infi- 
nite beauty and loveliness ^ And when the effort 
fails, and pen and chisel refuse to bring forth in 
actual form of poem or sculpture the phantom that 
is ever haunting and ever eluding the human mind, 
there only remains the broken and distorted pre- 
sentment of the impossible, — the majestic torso of 
a figure the full proportions of which can only be 
found in eternity. 



XIII 

And yet the soul of Michael Angelo is not in 

his paintings and sculptures; but in his poems^ what 

he failed to place with pencil and 

Painting and ^j^j^^j^ ^^ ^^^^ wroUght well with the 

more humble pen. And, as a reve- 
lation of those secret thoughts that fill all minds, 
but burn in the mind of genius, these lines culled 
at random, are indicative of much: 



SUMMER 275 



** The beauty thou discernest, all is hers ; 

But grows in radiance as it soars on high. 
Through mortal eyes unto the soul above. 
'T is there transfigured ; for the soul confers 
On what she holds her own divinity : 
And this transfigured beauty wins thy love." 

And Death was to be the Great Revealer : 

"Because in thee I love, O my loved lord. 

What thou best lovest, be not therefore stern : 
Souls burn for souls, spirits to spirits cry. 
I seek the splendour in thy fair face stored. 

Yet living man that beauty scarce can learn. 
And he who fain would find it, first must die.' 

Painting and sculpture are but for time : 

" Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest 
My soul that turns to His great love on high. 
Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread." 

But song is the art of eternity : 

**The fetters of my tongue do thou unbind. 
That I may have the power to sing of Thee 
And sound Thy praises everlastingly." 



XIV 

Yes ! These two beautiful characters stand out 

amid the caitiff rout of their contemporaries, colossi, 

girt with the maiestic and massive 

Great Sayings. == ^u r • j • ^ 

strength or genius and virtue com- 
bined, their high hands holding aloft the flaming 
torches of truth to light the dark and devious paths 
along which poor humanity is still struggling. And 
History, which with unerring finger, whether of 
disdain or justice, has blotted out from her pages 



276 PARERGA 



the names of the mere rabble of dukes and counts, 
Guelphs and Ghibellines, podestas and magistrates, 
kings and priors, has protected and enshrined in 
her pages these two names amongst the things she 
will never suffer to pass into oblivion. And she 
has kept also alive one or two of those great say- 
ings which, more than great works, are indicative of 
character. That " nunquam revertar " of Dante, 
written in response to a base proposal from his 
fellow countrymen, who were anxious to redeem 
their baseness without compromising their dignity ; 
and that reply of Michael Angelo to Julius II. in 
similar language : " I shall not return to Rome, for 
if I were undeserving of your esteem yesterday, I 
shall not be worthy of it to-morrow," mark the in- 
domitable spirit, that yet can be childlike in its 
humility. 

XV 

Strangest of all is the depth of tenderness that 

shows itself in these two souls, which on a merely 

superficial glance seemed clothed 

Their Tenderness. ^-^j^ ^j^^ ^^-^^ ^^ ^^^-^^^ ^^^ ^^^ 

haughtiness of unstained manhood. If we have any 
very definite idea of Dante, it is that of a proud, 
haughty, disdainful soul, wrapped up in the melan- 
choly of gloomy thoughts, and carrying in gait and 
face and figure the outward symptoms of a spirit 
darkened and embittered by the tragical events of his 
life. We know that when he passed along the streets 
of Ravenna, the people pointed him out : " Eccovi 
Fuomo cli e stato in inferno "; and how his speech was 
short and swift and brusque, especially towards 
the great ones of the earth. We also know that 
Michael Angelo flung aside with magnificent con- 



SUMMER 



-^11 



tempt offers of money or honours, which he could 
not accept without dishonour to his conscience, or 
disloyalty to his art. He, too, gives us the impres- 
sion of aloofness and solitude from his kind — of a 
great spirit engrossed with great thoughts, and 
utterly oblivious of these petty things which seem 
to occupy half the waking hours of ordinary men. 

XVI 

But if these great spirits were dowered with " the 
scorn of scorn, the hate of hate," they also were 
possessed with the larger poetic dower And infinite 
of "the love of love." It is easy to Pity- 
misunderstand both, just as such souls are generally 
misinterpreted by their kind ; and by the shallow 
critics who measure their manifoldness by their own 
barren simplicities. It is quite true, as Foscolo says, 
"that the power of despising^ which many boast, 
which few really possess, and with which Dante was 
uncommonly gifted by nature, afforded him the 
highest delight of which a lofty mind is susceptible." 
But it seems to me more true to say that this disdain 
was rather a panoply, a coat of arms against the 
" slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," than the 
real, inner soul of the man. To see Dante aright, 
one must turn away from that haughty and terrible 
face and watch him, the humble disciple of Virgil, 
as with timid steps, and in deep humility, he fol- 
lowed his master through the narrowing circles of 
hell ; and dropped down in faints of terror, or shed 
bitter tears, as Francesca swept by him, and in one 
pause of pleasure in her endless misery told her sad 
tale; or the wail of the sepulchral souls came borne 
to his ears, and he saw the terrible lids closing down 



278 PARERGA 



for ever under the sentences of the final judgment. 
And Dante, to be better known, must be followed 
into the higher regions of Purgatory and Paradise, 
if we are to know the depths of humility and the 
strength of divine love that animated the tried spirit, 
and contrasted with the gloom and severity of his 
exterior. 

XVII 

And then, the superb generosity of Michael 
Angelo ! He lavished his praises (and who can 
measure the value of such praises 
Generosity"^^^°'' ^^om such a mouth?) on all his con- 
temporaries. Massacio's pictures, he 
thinks, when first painted, must have been alive. 
The gates of the Baptistery at Florence, the work 
of Andrea de Pisa, are fit to hang at the entrance of 
heaven, Bramanti, who laid the first stone in the 
great basilica of St. Peter, was a clear, luminous 
mind, fit to design the greatest structure. He 
waves his hand towards the dome of the Cathedral 
at Florence, as he departs for Rome, and apostro- 
phises its builder, Brunelleschi : " Like you I will 
not build; better than you I cannot." He will 
accept no gift from any man. He sends back to 
the Pope the hundred crowns that were proffered as 
one month's wages at St. Peter's. This must be a 
work of love, or not be effected at all. He is im- 
portuned to come back to Florence, and leave his 
great work unfinished. He answers : " No ! to 
leave St. Peter's unfinished would be a great sin." 
He is hated. He speaks of " the cormorants who 
daily hope to get rid of me." He fronts death with 
the calm serenity of divine faith. " If life pleases 
us, death, being the work of the same Master, ought 



SUMMER 



279 



not to displease us." His soul can no longer be 
appeased by his passionate work of ninety years. 
He wants nothing now but love, — Eternal Love! 

xvni 

And then, the marvellous sweetness and purity 
of these men ! Although both of them wrote en- 
thusiastically, almost passionately, of 

, . . •' ? t- . / ' Platonic Love. 

love, It IS quite easy to perceive that 
it was not the love that flames along the lines of 
carnal poets or dramatists. The beauty Michael 
Angelo worshipped was purely intellectual. It was 
his conception, — his mind-creation of whatever was 
good and holy and pure in the universe of things. 
It was ideal beauty, the perfection which all lofty 
spirits seem to make it their life business to seek, 
and which haunts them with its ever-present, but 
ever elusive and evanescent suggestions of a Su- 
preme Excellence that exists, but will not reveal 
itself to the hungering human mind. That all his 
ideas were ranged along the highest pinnacles of 
sublimity we can conjecture from his poems as well 
as his plastic works. That his was an unstained 
nature Condivi, his friend, testifies : 

" I have often heard Michael Angelo reason and dis- 
course on love, but never heard him speak otherwise than 
upon Platonic love. As for me, I am ignorant what Plato 
has said upon this subject ; but this I know very well, — 
that, in a long intimacy, I never heard from his mouth a 
single word that was not perfectly decorous, and having for 
its object to extinguish in youth every improper desire, and 
that his own nature is a stranger to depravity." 



28o PARERGA 



XIX 

On the other hand, I wonder if there is in all lit- 
erature anything so beautiful as Dante's ideal and 
. spiritual love for Beatrice. It seems 

almost capable of redeeming and 
sweetening all that humanity has suffered from sen- 
suous poetry. It is so ethereal, so taintless, so flesh- 
less, so reverential, so tender, so awesome, that I 
think the womanhood of the whole world should 
deem itself glorified and sublimated by such a con- 
ception. Except alone the tribute of the same 
poet to our Blessed Lady, or the many tributes 
paid by his glorious countrymen by pen and pencil 
to the highest form of womanhood, it is the noblest 
personification of ideal beauty that has ever been 
made by human pen. When one sees in imagina- 
tion this glorious vision leading the poet upwards 
along the steep heights that lead to the summits 
of Heaven it gives a little shock to remember that 
Beatrice was married, and probably unhappily. But 
then we know that it is the child of fifteen, the 
gentle vision that confronted him that memorable 
day on the bridge that spanned the Arno, that 
he has placed for ever as the brightest spirit in the 
ranks of those who have been canonised by poetic 
adoration. 

XX 

For, after all, what are your Lauras, your Imogens, 

your Portias, vour Cordelias, to this gentle lady ? 

Of the earth, earthy, they are not fit 

Other Heroines. . , , r \ 

to raise the hem or her garment. 
Shakspeare, gross and carnal, amid a mob of carnal 
surroundings, could no more create a Beatrice than 



SUMMER 



he could paint a Crucifixion. Milton could never 
rise beyond the human attractions of an Eve. 
Goethe, fallen himself, could never dream but of the 
fallen. Tennyson alone in Arthur, and the " lily 
maid of Astolat" seems to have some conception 
that purity is the celestial privilege that elevates 
woman and ennobles man. But Tennyson could 
never reach the sublimity and glory of a heavenly 
Beatrice ; nor move an inch above the conception 
of purely human perfection embodied in a beautiful 
form, and endowed with the grace of infantile inno- 
cence and inexperience. Beatrice alone is the Spirit 
made perfect, the Being that evokes the adoration 
of man for the Highest. 

" Ch' amar dee I'opra chi '1 suo Fabro adora." 

XXI 

How fearfully the Italy of their love, the soul of 
their inspirations, has degenerated, is obvious to 
the most unprejudiced observer. The 

., *^. .-' , . . rr^ 1 J Decadent Italy. 

mercantile spirit, the spirit or England 
and America, the worship of Dea Moneta, has crept 
into the land of sunshine and beauty ; and to the 
horror of every lover of art and the picturesque, 
that fairest of fair lands is threatened with the fate 
of England. Ancient palaces whose walls have 
taken on the colour of ivory from a thousand suns, 
are being pulled down to make way for a wretched 
stucco modern mansion, cheap and nasty ; factory 
chimneys of hideous red brick, vomiting their fumes 
of smoke and soot, defile the vineyard and the 
olive-grove ; historic rivers are bridged by frail, 
cheap structures, as untrustworthy as that in Rome, 
which Michael Angelo found trembling beneath his 



282 PARERGA 



horse's hoof; and in Rome, Imperial Rome, ancient 
and venerable churches are being removed, with 
their glorious historical associations, to make way 
for Hausmann streets, where houses half built, and 
then suspended for lack of funds, stare down on a 
population that seems not to know, or feel, that its 
indifference to such sacrileges is the surest sign of 
its own decadence. 

XXII 

And there are no artists in Rome to-day, except 
a few German or American students who come from 
afar to study the masterpieces of a 
Poltf °'^^''" Past that shall never know a Renais- 

sance. Workmen in the Carrara 
quarries no longer chisel blocks for a Michael 
Angelo or a Canova ; but turn out cheap statues to 
fill the churches in England or the United States. 
A few wretched women make a livehhood as models 
for German or English students in the cities where, 
in their golden age, mighty masters knew no models 
but angels and saints ; and Dante and Petrarch and 
Michael Angelo — the Divine Poets of the Past, 
have for their successors a few hymnists of the 
Revolution, whose names shall never cross the Alps, 
or be heard beyond the village journal, in whose 
corners they are writing. 

XXIII 

Lo ! as I write these words, a 

Carducci. ,. ... r 

solitary Ime m a corner or a news- 
paper announces : 

Carducci is dead ! 

Am I therefore wrong? Carducci has crossed the 



SUMMER 283 



Alps. True ! And also true that just a few weeks 
ago, he was crowned poet by a few admirers from 
France and Italy. But oh ! what a mighty gulf 
separates this revolutionary singer of the nineteenth 
century from the Dante and iMichael Angelo and 
Petrarch of the past. No city shall fight for his re- 
mains and claim him as a child. No deputations to 
popes will plead for his dead ashes. No thousand 
translations of his poems shall be made into every 
language on the globe. And what a paltry and 
meagre ceremony this of yesterday compared to 
the crowning and laurelling of Petrarch by the 
Roman Senate in presence of fifty thousand jubilant 
and enthusiastic Romans. 

XXIV 

This age of iron and steel is not a great age. It 
shows no great men. There is everywhere a famine 
of intellect. A crowd of mediocrities 

fill the places occupied by the giant A^^egenerate 

geniuses of the past. And they have 
one and all this characteristic, — they are filled with 
the spirit of revolt. Goethe seemed to have antici- 
pated the wild delirium which was to seize on all the 
pretentious beings who came after him, when he put 
into the mouth of Satan, in answer to the interrog- 
atories of the student, " / am the Spirit who denies." 
Denial, revolt, the supersession of all existing forms 
of government or religion, to make way for schemes 
as visionary and undefined as Utopias and New At- 
lantides always are, — this is the Zeitgeist^ the spirit 
of the age. And with it arises a concomitant spirit, 
— a new-born enthusiasm for the past, especially the 
pagan past of the world, — the time when the arts 
were omnipotent, and the senses governed all things ; 



284 PARERGA 



when there was no law, no restraint, but the summum 
bonum was the creation and enjoyment of fair and 
beautiful things, without reference to higher calls 
and nobler duties for the well-being of humanity. 

XXV 

I have hardly a doubt that the great pagan, 
Goethe, whom Matthew Arnold, artist and agnostic, 

hails as the greatest voice of the nine- 
^hius! ^°^^' teenth century, was the first apostle 

and chief coryphaeus in this revolt 
against Christian civilisation, — this return to the 
reign of sense and paganism. He had his counter- 
parts of course in the mediseval renaissance ; but his 
was the nineteenth-century voice that awoke new and 
morbid and furious dreams in the newly emancipated 
intellect of Europe. For whereas the teachings of 
Voltaire were absolute negations, and those of Rous- 
seau preached a return to nature, the more subtle and 
more dangerous dogma of Goethe was the need of 
return to ancient paganism, — to the gods and god- 
desses who haunted the groves of Dodona and the 
banks of Ilyssus, and whose hot lusts and wanton- 
ness were extinguished in the streams of blood that 
flowed from the veins of martyrs for the cause of the 
pure and gentle Christ on the sands of the Coliseum. 

XXVI 

Rousseau and Voltaire precipitated the Revolu- 
tion. Goethe has had a slower but more opulent 

success in the Neo-paganism of our 
Rerasc^nce"' ^g^' This Strange and portentous 

renascence, which has not left even 
Ireland quite untouched, has had its scientists, its 



SUMMER 285 



lawgivers, its priests. The latest and most daring 
of its poets is the man Carducci, the author of that 
" Hymn to Satan " which startled and shocked even 
the most advanced of the anti-religious propagan- 
dists of modern Europe. There is some latent sense 
of decency in the English and German mind, that, 
notwithstanding its antagonism to Christianity, stops 
short at blasphemy and persecution. Thus the 
most advanced of the German transcendentalists 
never allowed himself the terrible looseness and 
audacity of speech which has always characterised 
the French schools of philosophy. And English 
thinkers will never pass the lines beyond which 
there is always the danger, if not of outraging the 
Supreme Intelligence, at least of shocking the nerves 
of cultured and refined compatriots. 

XXVII 

French and Italian atheists know no such re- 
straints. With them it is a point of honour to 
outrage religion, and flout the Al- ,, 

• L r ^XT\. ^il ^u • ^ Hymn to Satan. 

mighty. Whether their countrymen 
are insensible to such awful intellectual perversion, 
such Satanic defiance of all that is most high and 
holy, we know not. This we know, that no poem 
in modern times has equalled the blasphemous au- 
dacity of "The Hymn to Satan"; and yet it is 
Carducci's first claim to distinction as an Italian 
poet. It is the hymn of the orgies of human na- 
ture let loose with all its terrific possibilities of 
untamed and unrestrained licentiousness. It is the 
voice of the whirlwind and of the conflagration, 
scouring and sweeping the earth, to make way for 
the empire of Satan. And the two ideas are blended 



286 PARERGA 



in fatal unison, — the emancipation of the flesh and 
the Spirit. Venus 

Tra le odorifere \ -it ^ .1 j 

_, ,,T , Venus amongst the sweet-scented 

Palme d'ldumc. I ■, r tj u >k r 

T^ 1 • 1 • V palms of Idumaea, where the foam 

Dove biancheegiano r l /-. • • li u j 

T rx- • o 01 the Cyprian wave is blanched. 

Le Ciprie Spume, j ■"^ 

and then Martin Luther! 

Gitta la tonaca ^ ^^^^^ ^^-^^ ^, j^^j^j^^ ^^^^j^ 

Martin Lutero, I ^j^her I Cast aside thy bonds, 

Gitta a taoi vincoh f o human reason ! 

uman pensiero. J 

and then : 

Salute OSatana! ^ All hail, O Satan ! O rebel- 

O Rebelhone ! ,• , --> • r 

O fozza vindice [ !^°" ' ^ avenging power of 
human reason ! 



Delia ragione. 



XXVIII 



The idea has by no means the merit of originaHty. 

It is as old as the world, and has seized on the 

minds of men under different forms 

Lawlessness. , ^ -n • 1 • 1 

and figures. But it has certainly 
reached its fullest development in the writings of 
the last century. The cardinal principle in the 
philosophic works of the arch-rebel, William God- 
win, was that " law is an institution of the most 
pernicious tendency ; " and that in religion and law 
is to be found "a dark power of imposture which 
fights and has hitherto fought with singular success 
against the power of truth. Kings and priests rep- 
resent the incarnation of evil." Humanity is the 
chained " Prometheus," and Law is the Jove, the 
tyrant, the avenger, who keeps the far-seer and 
far-seeker in chains. Thoroughly sympathetic. 



SUMMER 287 



Shelley can scarcely be said to have adopted this 
idea, which was already his own by reflection and 
prejudice. He has embodied all that the revolu- 
tionary spirit has preached and promulgated in his 
" Revolt of Islam " ; and in his sad life he flung 
down the gauntlet at the feet of public opinion 
and suffered, as all men must suffer, who contend 
against what is inexorable as Fate. 



XXIX 

But the strange thing is that it was the scientific 
spirit, of which Goethe was more enamoured than 
of poetry, which, in the very middle 
of the century shattered for ever ^""J^"" ^"^ 
this idea of universal passion and 
indiscriminate love by proving, through the dis- 
coveries of Charles Darwin, that it is not Love but 
Law that rules the universe. It came as a terrific 
shock to all those hapless minds who were hugging 
the belief that the great motive power of the world 
was the instinct, which man has in common with the 
beast, to satisfy unbridled passion and sanctify the 
infringement of social customs by an appeal to 
the suffrages of the emancipated. A higher class, 
which had clung to a higher conception of Love, as 
" being Nature's final law," were no less terrified 
at being brought face to face with iron necessity. 
It seemed as if the universe were shackled in a blind 
despotism that worked darkly and enigmatically, but 
pursued its unerring way heedless of aught it caused 
in the way of despair and suffering, and moving 
slowly but with awful and indifferent regularity 
towards the consummation of a purpose as hidden 
as its action was mechanical and blind. 



288 PARERGA 



XXX 

There was something pitiful in the way in which 
the Doubters and the Agnostics (who clung in the 
darkness to some faint hope that 
behind the dread mechanism of the 
universe was some mysterious, impersonal element 
which, in face of the iron necessity that seemed to 
encompass the universe, was yet slowly working out 
the problems of existence towards a millennium of 
universal and eternal Love) were suddenly con- 
fronted with the discovery that there was nothing 
anywhere but Law. In the dead mineral, in the 
half-sentient vegetable, in the highest organism, 
called man, life or existence, or whatever it may be 
called, was evolved by one law, conserved by an- 
other, abandoned to decay and dissolution by a third ; 
and whilst a certain section of that school professed 
to accept with a kind of joyful enthusiasm the fact 
that even Death itself, with all its brood of minor 
evils, could be accepted with equanimity as part of 
the inexorable programme, another and more sensi- 
tive section seemed to look back with brimming and 
wistful eyes to the days when they reposed in the 
full security of a faith that could gladly accept this 
theory of Law, with the conviction that it came 
from the hands of the same great Originator whom 
they called our Father, and Lord of all hope and 
love. 



SUMMER 



Section II 

XXXI 

There are two admirable laws amongst the Jews 
which might well be adopted by Christian commu- 
nities. The first is, that no Jewish ^ . ^ , 

, . , 1111 • 1 Jewish Laws. 

youth or maiden should be permitted 
to read the Song of Solomon, the Canticle of Can- 
ticles, until the age of thirty, the age of maturity, 
was reached. Notwithstanding its vast spiritual 
significance, which was perhaps but dimly guessed 
by Jewish legislators, there is a certain sensuous 
sweetness in this piece of exquisite Oriental poetry 
that might possibly prove to youthful or effeminate 
minds suggestive of things on which the pure imag- 
ination is forbidden by natural instinct to dwell. In 
the frantic passion for education which characterises 
our epoch the lesson is one that may be laid to 
heart. Preceptors and professors who may have 
passed beyond the age of temptation, and who have 
grown enthusiastic about favourite authors, are prone 
to forget that youth has its hot fires of passions only 
banked up by the restraints of religion or the ab- 
sence of temptation ; and the old and venerable and 
veritable warning, Maxima debetur pueris reverentia^ 
is too apt to be forgotten in the race for culture, and 
the pride of being able to say, I have read that ! 
Meat for men ; milk for babes. There are lines 
of congruity everywhere that should never be 
overpassed. 



2Q0 PARERGA 



XXXII 

I would sacrifice "Hamlet" rather than see the eyes 
of a young girl resting on those three or four lines 

of his address to Ophelia; I would 
Learning.^°'^ bum " Romeo and Juliet" rather than 

see the first hot blush of wounded 
innocence mantling the face and neck of some sweet 
child, whose eyes had rested for the first time on 
the obscene wit of that thrice detestable nurse. I 
would not make our youth, no matter how ardent in 
their passion for self-improvement, mere "pickers-up 
of pearls from dunghills." The soul is greater than 
the mind ; and its purity is more important than the 
mere mental cultivation. It is not by intellectual 
acquirements, but by character ^^^t are judged before 
the tribunals of men, as well as that of conscience. 
The life is more than the work, as the body is more 
than the raiment. It is moral excellence, after all, 
that constitutes the charm of humanity ; and the 
sweet and holy innocence of girlhood is of far more 
importance than the wit of gilded salons, or the 
achievements of a George Sand or a De Stael. 



XXXIII 

I would have an Index Expurgatorius for youths 
and maidens under thirty ; and I would promptly 
place upon it such names as Boccaccio, 
Montaigne, Rabelais, Shakspeare, etc. 
Whatever contempt modern sciolists may lavish on 
" Family " or " Bowdlerised " Shakspeares, there can 
be no question that in their complete and naked mate- 
rialism, Shakspeare's works are unfit for the young ; 



SUMMER 291 



and there can be no greater proof of human in- 
sincerity, and human inconsistency and human 
hypocrisy, than to see such lavish and wholesale 
condemnation poured out upon such writers as 
Flaubert and Zola, and d'Annunzio, and Maupas- 
sant, whilst Chaucer and Spenser and Shakspeare 
amongst ourselves, and the above-named authors in 
foreign literature are numbered amongst the classics; 
and catalogued amongst the Hundred Best Books 
which have passed down as the noble heritage of 
dead workers to posterity. 



XXXIV 

If we want to keep the minds of the young on 
those high altitudes of thought where the air they 
breathe is pure, and free from nox- 

' , . , . Present Poetry. 

lous vapours, let us put mto their 
hands Dante and Michael Angelo, Milton and 
Wordsworth, Tennyson and Matthew Arnold ; and 
the large host of junior and contemporary writers 
who might have achieved immortality if they had 
been lucky enough to be born under an earlier star. 
For that, too, is a singular feature of our age — 
namely, our contempt, or perhaps our ignorance, of 
much poetry and prose of the present day, which, 
if written a hundred years ago, would have ranked 
the writers amongst the immortals. The literary 
market is overstocked ; and valuable assets are held 
cheaply. We have such abundant treasures from 
the past that we flout the shy advances of those who 
proffer their literary wares. And yet a wise reader, 
who might be possessed of taste, might do well to 
form a private anthology of many poems, now hid- 
den away in the ephemeral pages of magazines ; but 



292 PARERGA 



which, if I mistake not, would be crowned, if we 
had the advantage of an Academy of Letters in 
English-speaking lands. 



XXXV 

The second admirable provision of Jewish law 
was, if we are to believe the Talmud and tradi- 
tion, that which made the acquisition 
Law.^^'^°"'^ of some manual trade compulsory 

on Hebrew youth. The thought 
flashed on me to-day, as I watched with interest the 
steady, rhythmic, unintermittent way in which an 
ordinary day-labourer, whom I had employed for 
the moment, worked in my garden. I cannot guar- 
antee that his work was so regular in my absence ; 
but as 1 watched him I could not help admiring 
the smooth, powerful manner in which his whole 
frame worked with spade or hoe. It was just like 
the beautiful perfection of some powerful machine, 
when the steam has been let on, and crank and 
piston and lever silently obey and move, as if in a 
kind of blind intelligence, towards the accomplish- 
ment of some object, of which they know absolutely 
nothing. He was by no means a powerful man, 
had even the repute of being delicate. But there 
seemed to be no weariness or pain in his work. I 
took up the heavy shovel, but in ten minutes had 
to put it down again. At six o'clock he ceased 
work, and I asked him : " Are you fatigued ? " 
" Oh, dear, no ! " he said. He had worked eight 
hours with slight intermission. " Thou art my 
superior and master there 1 " I thought. 



SUMMER 



293 



XXXVI 

His nerves and muscles, trained almost from 
childhood, had the consistency and hardness of iron. 
Labour was a kind of pleasure to 

1 • Tj u-ij r ^L • Ceaseless Work, 

mm. He was a child or the uni- 
verse, where, if you think well, the same smooth, 
silent, unceasing work is going on, day and night, 
since the dawn of Creation. I never cease wonder- 
ing at it — the quiet, silent, never-hasting, never- 
ceasing work of the universe. No noise, no tumult, 
no dumb ostentation, or articulate boasting; but 
eternal silence, and eternal labour, the whole, vast, 
intricate machinery revolving, creating, renewing 
dissipated forces, and again entangling them in some 
web or woof of perfect and flawless workmanship. 
Oh ! how sublime it all is, had we eyes to see it — 
had we eyes to observe that from the bursting of a 
bud, or the snipping of a shell up to sun-spots and 
star-clusters, there is motion everywhere, every- 
where mute but eloquent obedience to some unseen 
Voice that commands, some unseen Hand that directs 
and controls unerringly; and just as unerringly is 
obeyed by the vast and complex energies that lie 
hid beneath the outer vesture and embroideries of 
nature. 

XXX vn 

Sometimes, in the warm summer evenings, when 
I see harvest labourers, or road and quarry workers, 
returning from the day's toil, en- 
crusted with dust, and with moist ^ou7e?s!^^" 
foreheads ; and when I speak to 
them, and notice the hard lines labour has chiselled 



294 PARERGA 



on their features, and how the odour of honest sweat 
and the minute particles of wood or stone or corn 
exhales from their garments, my heart goes out in 
great pity to them, and in a certain mute, modified 
contempt for myself. And when I see the labourer 
sitting over the embers of his fire in his little cabin, 
silent as all these men are, and think, "To-morrow, 
and to-morrow, and to-morrow there is nought for 
that man but early rising, hard work, poor fare, and 
limited wages," I feel a kind of natural insurgence 
rising up within me at such a state of economics, 
until further reflection suggests that this man, too, 
is living in strict consonance with Nature, obeying 
its laws, pursuing the same course, travailing with 
the same silent persistence, and reaping the same 
reward. What? The feeling that one is obeying 
the behests of the Supreme Powers, and mutely and 
humbly helping on the vast work which, with some 
great ulterior design in the background, forms the 
present programme and cosmic arrangement of the 
visible universe. 

XXXVIII 

And I notice that Nature, with her rudder and 
wheel of Nemesis, ever scouring the earth, will pun- 
ish this man, too, even for enforced 
emesis. idleness. Condemn that man to a 

week's inaction there by his fireside, and you make 
a miserable man. It is not only the lack of means 
that disturbs him, but the sense of uselessness. All 
things around him are busy. The grass is growing, 
the flowers budding, the birds are singing, and man 
and beast go forth to their labour in the morning 
and return at eve ; but he, he alone, is out of touch 
with Nature. He is a rusty cog, flung aside from 



SUMMER 



295 



the great oiled mechanism to rot in ignoble idleness 
by the wayside. It is no fault of his, and yet he is 
ashamed. He buries himself there in his sepulchre 
as one dead, and he fears the face of his fellow-man. 
Condemn him to further idleness and he becomes 
hebetated and old before his time. Condemn him 
to perpetual idleness, and he seeks and finds refuge 
from the ignominy in the grave. Not many years 
ago I witnessed a strike on the Great Southern and 
Western Railway. It lasted six weeks. The men 
went around the streets day by day dressed in their 
Sunday clothes. They always looked shamefaced, 
and turned away when my eye met theirs. They 
were not ashamed of the strike. They believed it 
to be justified. But the Sunday clothes on working- 
days were Nessus shirts, — garments of shame. 

XXXIX 

I am not at all sure but that manual training 
should go hand in hand with, and even precede, 
mental training. Very often the 
mind, slower in its development than th^^H(^."" "^'^^ 
the body, can afford to wait. And, 
besides, manual training is mental training, inas- 
much as it develops powers of observation, ac- 
curacy of thinking, patience in watching details, 
and the labour of perseverance. But, apart from 
that, no mental training is a compensation for feeble 
muscles, weak nerves, myopia, and the host of other 
evils that are inseparable from purely sedentary 
lives ; and no mental acquirement or intellectual 
success is compensation for that growing contempt 
for honest manual labour which is becoming one of 
the most vicious and unpleasant symptoms of our 



296 PARERGA 



advanced civilisation. " Back to the land ! " is the 
cry of all economists of the present day; and "Back 
to manual work ! " may also be the warcry of those 
who are painfully conscious that our advanced civili- 
sation is more or less that of a race in its decrepi- 
tude, and on the downgrade towards extinction. 
At least, it seems very certain to some minds that 
it is the " man with the hoe," and not the man with 
the pen, we need mostly in these times. 



XL 

Hence I cannot help feeling a certain contempt or 
loathing when I behold young men, just budding 
into the twenties, calmly putting the 
pillows of old age under their elbows, 
and settling down to a long life of most ignoble 
inactivity. It is not alone the Sybaritic baseness 
and selfishness of the thing that repels, but the very 
horror at the incongruity of studied idleness and 
uselessness amidst the general activities of -Nature. 
Clearly these are mere parasites of Nature, and the 
word has an ill signification. It means not only 
idleness and uselessness, but theft, disregard for 
others' rights, preying on the industries of others, 
eating bread that is not righteously earned. It may 
be a safe life and a secure one, where none of the 
lower evils are encountered, and there is always a 
kind of dulcet monotone of undisturbed serenity. 
But if great trials are avoided, great deeds also 
remain undone, and, in hugging a miserable sense 
of security, the possibility of nobleness is utterly 
lost. 



SUMMER 



297 



XLI 

Every man should have a great ideal in life — 
some high point in character or action to be aimed 
at, even though it be never attained. 
No man is absolute arbiter of his fate, f^^^ ^^^^^ 
or parceller of his destiny. Will- 
power counts for much, but only when conscience 
is laid aside. " If you want to make your way in 
the world," says a witty French writer, " you must 
plough through humanity like a cannon-ball, or you 
must glide through it like a pestilence." Had he 
his countrymen Napoleon and Voltaire before his 
mind, when he penned these words ? But " mak- 
ing one's way in the world " is not the attainment 
of the high ideal of which I speak. It is rather a 
low ideal, the poor ambition of fox or beaver, or 
their human types in commerce or the professions. 
It is an animal instinct. It marks a man as belong- 
ing to a degenerate type. It is not the symbol or 
phrase that designates the higher call to the higher 
issues towards which humanity is bound to tend. 

XLII 

Better to have written on our tombs ; " Labo- 
ravi," or " Passus sum," than " Fehcissimus fui." 
I have seen two faces quite lately 
on whose foreheads such inscriptions ^ 

had been already chiselled. One was the face of a 
gentlewoman, grown old in peace and prosperity, 
on whom the world had always smiled. Peace had 
been her portion, and old age was not infirmity, but 
the crown and consummation of the unbroken felici- 
ties that had been her lot in life. One could be 



298 PARERGA 



thankful, but one could not worship there. The 
other had been sculptured by life-long sorrow, — • 
perpetual sickness, loss of material resources, falling 
away of friends, deception where honour had been 
expected, derision for no fault but for having borne 
the whips of Fate. It was one of those faces, which 
externally calm, are ever ready to break their sur- 
face serenity by the trembling of a lip or the gath- 
ering and falling of a silent tear. One might well 
worship here. We are in the sanctuary of sorrow. 



XLIII 

"Nature had intended him for a philosopher. 
He became an orator." Was it fate, or self-neglect, 
or a chain of unavoidable circum- 
stances, that brought about the catas- 
trophe ? We know not ; nor do we know about 
whom the terrible epigram has been uttered. But 
whoever the unhappy man was, great was the de- 
ordination ; and great was his fall. For I cannot 
conceive a more tremendous contrast than that 
which exists between the science of philosophy, and 
the dying art of oratory ; or between the student 
pursuing in the sacred silence of his library or study 
his investigations into the arcana of human and 
divine things, and the mere talker in Parliament or 
on platform, trying to cheat the senses of his audi- 
ence, until they in turn cheat the intellect, wrapping 
it in a cloud of "words, words, words." What a con- 
trast between Demosthenes and Plato ! The former 
is rapidly fading away from human vision with a "De 
Corona" folded beneath his spectral toga. And half 
the scholars of the modern world are still at Plato's 
feet. 



SUMMER 



299 



XLIV 

It is singular, very singular, how the art of the 
orator is rapidly passing into the limbo of lost arts, 
like its sister accomplishment of con- 

A ^ ...L u ^ J A Lost Art. 

versation. At the bar to-day, no 
barrister dare attempt the oratorical flights of an 
Erskine, or a Brougham, of a Grattan or a Shiel. 
If he attempted such appeals ad captandum^ the jury 
would promptly shut him up, if the stifled laughter 
of the court had not already suppressed him. In 
Parliament, no member dare repeat the processes by 
which great measures were passed in bygone gener- 
ations. Gladstone and Bright were the last orators 
of England ; and the success of the latter was due to 
his lucidity and brevity ; whilst the verbosity of the 
former was beginning to be a torture to his friends, 
whilst it never won for himself a single vote. There 
is but one place still where the dying art is held in 
reverence — that is, the platform. The audience 
are the illiterate and unthinking. Even in the 
church, oratory is decried. "Instruction" and 
"illumination" are now the watchwords. Would 
Lacordaire summon five thousand men to Notre 
Dame to-day ? 

XLV 

Two things fill me with perpetual surprise, — the 
existence in this practical age of a Parliament, or 
/^//^z»£--house, and the descent of „ , 

, ° , . , , . . , Parliament. 

such thmkers and writers as Mr. 
Balfour and Mr. Morley from the dignified and 
sacred retirement of their libraries to the vulgar 
controversies that rage across the floor of the House 



300 PARERGA 



of Commons. It is simply inexplicable how the 
British public, clamouring for ever new devices for 
shortening the details of business, and expediting 
public affairs, should still tolerate such an anach- 
ronism as the House of Commons. In an age of 
telegraphs and telephones, tubular railways and 
motors, when every man's speech is Tea ! Tea ! 
and Nay ! Nay ! it is impossible to understand 
why such an active race can regard with compla- 
cency the awful waste of public time, the post- 
ponement of public business, the sacrifice of public 
interests for the sake of those interminable and 
stupid debates, those dreary and uninteresting 
speeches, those eternal platitudes, and that com- 
ical attitudinising which waste the time and de- 
grade the dignity of the Mother of Parliaments. 

XLVI 

In ordinary life, whenever business has to be 
transacted, men meet around a green-baized table, 
„ . their watches in their hands, or their 

Business men. , , , ^ \ • n • i 

eyes on the clock, and briefly, with 
the least expenditure of human talk, discuss, debate, 
and decide the point at issue ; then depart to other 
pursuits. If any long-winded orator were to attempt 
a speech, they would take up their hats and walk 
away. And yet, in an assemblage of six hundred 
and fifty gentlemen, elected to arrange the most 
complicated machinery in politics and economics the 
world has ever witnessed, and to legislate for the 
social and moral welfare of 300,000,000 of people 
of every clime and race and colour, the most ordi- 
nary and petty measure, that would be carried by a 
vestry in a London suburb in half an hour, becomes 



SUMMER 301 



I 



the subject of human oratory that spreads its dreary- 
desolation over hours and days, and broadens out 
into a mud-flood that fills column after column of 
the morning papers, but into which no man will 
dip a finger if he cares to keep himself clean and 
intact. 

XLVII 

I remember one evening in the House of Com- 
mons in the gallery over the clock, saying to an 
attendant, whilst an unhappy mem- ^ ^ ^ „ 

, ' . . , . r r; . , In the Gallery. 

ber was swinging his arms runously 
below me, and talking to empty green benches, the 
speaker gently dozing the while, and a few groups 
gathered here and there, and talking leisurely around 
the pillars : 

" Is this the thing that governs and legislates for 
300,000,000 of subjects ? " 

" It thinks it does," was the answer. After a 
pause he said : 

'' It is just like a school. There's the master and 
his ferule. Here are the scholars, and a very un- 
ruly lot they are sometimes." 

The member was droning away below, and ges- 
ticulating furiously at nothing in particular. It was 
getting on my nerves. 

" How long has the Speaker to listen to this kind 
of thing? " I asked. 

" From four o'clock hevery day to dinner-time ; 
from dinner-time to hany hour in the morning the 
'Ouse may choose to sit," he replied. 

There was a pause. The eternal droning broken 
by appeals to " Mr. Speaker, Sir," was incessant. 
One old gentleman, the rim of his hat resting gently 
on his nose, was looking alternately at the Speaker, 



302 PARERGA 



at his watch, and at the member. The others were 
chatting and laughing. The Speaker was sleeping 
gently. 

" Does that man ever go mad ? " I said, pointing 
to the latter. 

" Never, sir," he said. " Probably he would, but 
he dozes through." 

" I shall go mad if I stay much longer," I said. 
" How long will England tolerate this? " 

" Until some men are sent in," he replied, " to 
whom time is money, — some workers who work by 
the piece, and not on day wages. They '11 make 
short work of this thing." 

And the eternal drone went on. The attendant 
became anxious for me. Probably he did not care 
to be compelled to escort me from the house. 

" If I was you, sir," he said, " I think 1 'd go over 
to the 'Ouse of Lords. There may be a sumthink 
agoin' on there. This is very bad." 

I took the hint, and went over to the House of 
Lords. 

XLVIII 

With "bated breath and whispering humbleness " 
I entered the gilded chamber. The glare of red 

benches caught my eye; the solemn 
Lord?°^^^ °^ ^"^ dignified silence smote on my 

senses; and then I became aware of 
a figure, which could not be called dignified because 
it was so young and masculine, standing in the 
aisle and fronting the woolsack, and of a melodious, 
gentle, musical voice that filled, as with bird-like 
melody, the entire chamber. I at once feared for 
myself. I dreaded my conversion. I stood at the 
dread point when I feared that I should be forced 



SUMMER 303 



unwillingly to abandon a cherished conviction, and 
resign a dear and well-cherished prejudice. I felt 
my knees tremble at the possibility. I wanted to 
close my ears, but I could not. I stood spellbound 
as the clear, musical voice, without haste, without 
rest, slowly but unhesitatingly went on pouring out 
sentence after sentence so perfect, so connected, so 
logical, so forcible, so affable, that I had to steel 
myself against its fascinations, and prompt the rea- 
son to stand up boldly against the betrayal of the 
senses. I succeeded only by shutting my ears 
against the siren words, and asking myself their 
meaning. It was all about the paramount obliga- 
tion of England, the mighty elephant, to squelch 
some rat of a border tribe. 



XLIX 

This was an attempt at disillusion ; and yet I 
could not tear myself away. The contrast between 
the unhappy member of the popular ^. .„ 

, 1 ^ 11 • 11 Disillusion. 

chamber talkmg to empty benches, 
and this polished orator holding spellbound the 
Lords Paramount of England, was the contrast 
between the droning of a Scotch bagpipe and some 
airy fantasie of Bach or Beethoven played by a 
master. The House knew it, and yielded itself 
easily to the fascination. There was not a sound 
to break the breathless silence. All eyes were fixed 
on the young orator as, with his left hand in his 
pocket and his right hand drawing airy circles like 
a skilful hypnotist, he proceeded on his easy but 
delightful task. I do not think he was concerned 
much about influencing the opinions of the honour- 
able House, or snatching a vote. He seemed more 



304 PARERGA 



like an artist, who revelled in his work ; an athlete, 
who gloried in his graceful strength. He paused 
at last, and sat down. I expected an ovation. 
There was a gentle murmur of applause, something 
like the fretful murmur of a sick child that tosses in 
its sleep. The Chancellor climbed down from the 
woolsack ; the mighty Lords rose up. The House 
adjourned. Had the eloquence paralysed them for 
future effort ? Not at all. They went downstairs 
to dine. 



Whilst I was listening, as in a dream, to Lord 
Rosebery, and fighting against the almost irresist- 
ible fascination of his eloquence, an 
THck."^^^^^^"* incongruous thought would rush in, 
and the cynical, if good-natured re- 
mark of Jane Welsh Carlyle about De Quincey 
would suggest itself: "What would not one give 
to be able to keep him in a bandbox, and take him 
out ad libitum to talk ! " I know this comes from 
reading Heine. That unfortunate fellow is always 
dropping you from a cloud into a river, from a bank 
of primroses into a sewer. And it is an unpleasant 
trick which one is prone to imitate. But it at least 
utters the verdict of " ineffectuality " against all 
parliamentary eloquence. The public should at 
once insist on making the Houses of Commons 
and Lords places of business and not of idle talk. 
By all means, give a grant towards establishing a 
Forum down in South Kensington or elsewhere 
where oratory might yet be practised; or where 
such speakers as Lord Rosebery or Mr. Morley 
might have an opportunity of demonstrating the art 
of eloquence side by side with Raphael's cartoons or 



SUMMER 305 



Bayeux tapestries. And resolve the aforesaid 
Houses into fifty committees for the transaction 
of public business. Oratory is as much out of 
place in legislative chambers as cheap oleographs in 
an attorney's chambers, or an Italian organ-grinder 
behind the grating of the general post-office. 

LI 

The second question is, what in the world brings 
Lord Rosebery from his library at Dalmeny, or 
Mr. Balfour from his lodge in Scot- 
land, or John Morley from his 
beloved Encyclopedists to foregather with such 
heterogeneous elements under the incandescent gas- 
lights and in the overheated atmosphere of the 
House of Commons ? And further still, we would 
ask, how can such men leave the society of Plato and 
Bacon, of Shakspeare and Dante, for the squalid and 
altogether mean squabbles that go on about paltry 
economic questions across the floor of the House ? 
And further still, how can such men accept office 
and sacrifice the serenity as well as usefulness of 
their lives in dealing with all the chicanery and 
deception, all the prevarication and lying, all the 
furious conflicts of interests and opinions arising 
out of racial prejudices, personal ambitions, social 
antagonisms, religious mania, and national antipa- 
thies that form the mighty maelstrom of modern 
political life ? And further still, how can such men, 
accustomed to the lofty and spiritual ethics which 
they must accept with their reading, and which, if 
not consecrated by religion, are at least sanctioned 
by philosophy, condescend to assume the methods 
which custom sanctions as necessary for state- 



3o6 PARERGA 



machinery, and force their consciences into accept- 
ing mental reservations, the " suppressio veri " and 
the " suggestio falsi," which go to make up from 
time immemorial the equipment of a successful 
statesman ? 

LII 

When we think for a moment of Dalmeny 
Park, with its two thousand five hundred acres, of 
_ , _, , the noble Tudor mansion, with its 

Dalmeny Park. . r ^ r r \ 

suites or lorty apartments, or the su- 
perb walks and drives through the almost primitive 
wilderness, until one comes here upon forest glades 
which the scythe and the axe have never touched, and 
again on some grey-turreted castle overhanging the 
waters of the Forth, and washed on two sides by the 
tides that sweep up from the North German Ocean ; 
when we reflect that the owner has it in his power 
to summon thither, where nature is at its loveliest, 
the choicest intellectual spirits of Great Britain and 
the world ; and when we imagine the daily silent 
delights of that superb library, or the pleasure of 
meditation there where the sea laps the rough 
granite of the tower ; and then of the nocturnal 
revels where neither wine nor other dissipation can 
blunt the intellect, but all the powers of great and 
trained minds are brought to bear on the thousand 
subjects that agitate and interest modern thinkers, 
it seems incredible that the very genius of the place 
should desert it for the stuffy benches of Westmin- 
ster and the more or less degrading occupation of 
crossing swords with antagonists unworthy of his 
steel. 



SUMMER 307 



LIII 

What is it all ? Where is the fascination ? And 
where is the reward? It may be the possibility of 
acquiring; honours which governments ^ ., „ , . ,. , 

.7, & . . o ,. . , Is It Patriotism? 

Will not give except tor political ser- 
vices. But then, — what can a philosopher care for 
a piece of ribbon, or an empty title? It cannot be 
money. I suppose that the distinguished men 
whose names I have mentioned are above the 
craving, which though universal, has yet a certain 
touch of baseness always associated with it. Can it 
be patriotism — the desire to maintain the splendid 
supremacy by land and sea, in court and cabinet, 
of " this England of ours " ? A noble ambition, 
but pursued in a more heroic, because a more 
ignoble manner than on the battlefield or the sea- 
plain. But can the patriotism of a Brutus or a Leon- 
idas stand the strain of hustings and platforms, or 
the hardly less trying ordeals of long summer after- 
noons, and dreary winter nights in the House of 
Commons ? Or is it, after all, a kind of superfluous 
energy, that, tired with the monotony of thought, 
seeks the variety of action, and expends itself in 
the pleasurable excitement of such intellectual jousts 
and tournaments as must exist, so long as there are 
parties to contend with each other, and the glories 
of office are the prize. Yet, I can often imagine 
these splendid athletes asking themselves, after 
some "night of scenes" at Westminster, whether, 
after all, " the game is worth the candle." 



3o8 PARERGA 



LIV 

I think it is Balzac who said : " Young men 
have nearly always a pair of compasses with which 

they measure the future. When 
Bold?* *°° their will accords with the audacity 

of the angle they open, the world is 
theirs." The writer, like so many who are fond of 
audacious generalisations, forgot that there are such 
things as circumstances, environments, surroundings ; 
and that these need to be taken into account in 
forecasting or calculating success. There is many a 
poor fellow in Dartmoor and Portland to-day who 
opened his compasses all too wide, and found the 
circumference within prison walls. There is a good 
deal of wisdom in the ancient inscription over the 
Grecian temple or rather over its porches : " Be 
bold ! " " Be very bold ! " " Be not too bold ! " 
Your lot in life may be cast amongst cowards ; and 
then the world is a cheese. But it may also be cast 
amongst strong men ; and then the world is a 
granite quarry. And, besides, a good many young 
men are prone to open widely the compasses of their 
future, until they become a straight line on the 
paper, the points on a level with the ecHptic. Under 
such circumstances, the circumference cannot be de- 
scribed by any means. It is rather a question 
whether more careers are ruined by sinking into the 
grave of cowardice, than by being dashed against 
the granite wall of circumstances against which 
they have been precipitated. 



SUMMER 309 



LV 

Yesterday, I accepted an invitation of long-stand- 
ing from one of our most distinguished Irish 
scientists, Mr. Ussher, to visit the , , ^ 

'l C n ^] 1 ^^ t^^ Depths. 

mammoth caves or Lastlepooke. 
They are in my parish, not two miles northeast 
from the town; and, like many other treasure- 
houses of earth, they remained for centuries and 
aeons unknown and unnoticed, until this gentle saint 
of science came this way ; and unto him the great 
revelation was made, — that here, in this cave, 
hitherto regarded merely as a fox-hole, or a place 
where the weasel or ferret might breed, were count- 
less treasures more valuable than so much gold, 
or costliest diamond. He was at home when I 
called, — that is, his faithful and most intelligent 
servitor heard my voice from the awful depths of 
the cave ; and by candlelight I groped my way 
along a narrow corridor, on a solitary plank, and 
stooped not so much in humility, as through reve- 
rence for hundreds of stalactites that hung down, 
hard as steel and sharp as lancets, like the bosses on 
the shield of a Grecian chief After much stum- 
bling, and a heedless glance at the chambers called 
the Cathedral, and the Swallow Hall and the 
Hyena Hall (where Mr. Ussher has discovered the 
only relics of that animal hitherto found in Ireland) 
I found myself in the Elephant Hall, where just 
now they were making excavations. 



310 PARERGA 



LVI 

Here Mr. Ussher had already dug up the re- 
mains of a mighty mammoth ; and just then his 
. ., , attendant was digging with a pick- 

A Mammoth. , , °° , i '^ i 

axe through a second layer several 
inches thick of stalagmite, to search the soft red 
loam or sand beneath. The place was in Cim- 
merian darkness, the black, glistening walls dimly 
revealed by the light of a solitary candle. Great 
cavities yawned beneath us, from which we were 
only protected by safely standing on the twelve-inch- 
wide footpath ; great rocks were tumbled all around ; 
the ceiling of the cave rose above us rugged and 
threatening; vast recesses everywhere, so gloomy 
and engulphed, you felt every moment as if some 
great monster of primordial time would heave out 
of the darkness his colossal bulk, and make a sum- 
mary end of the pigmies who were disturbing his 
eternal sleep. I felt as if the Almighty Maker had 
plunged me into a dream, and taken me back to 
the time when chaos rested over all things, and 
darkness slept on the face of the deep. 

LVI I 

There were sundry other halls to be examined, 
— Fairy Halls, Earthquake Chambers, etc. But I 
,, ., o „ ,. yearned for the sun and the light; I 

Halls of Eblis. -^ , ^ , & '. 

wanted to get away from these wiz- 
ards and magicians of the caves, clad in their leath- 
ern tunics and soiled by the chemistry of nature. 
I crept out into the light humbly ; and wondered 
what a passionate thing it must be, this rapture of 
science, that compels that gentleman, of independent 



SUMMER 



311 



means, to spend those long, bright summer days, 
when all Nature is smiling outside, to bury himself 
with a solitary candle in this tomb of the dead, and 
rake out of sand and loam fossils that seem to the 
untutored mind nothing more than mere debris, 
flung aside by the agency of death, and the con- 
tempt of Nature. Whilst we were speaking in the 
little hut outside, where Mr. Ussher keeps and sorts 
his specimens, his attendant came out of the cave, 
holding two earth-soiled brown fragments of bone 
in his hands. The scientist put the fragments to- 
gether. They mortised neatly into each other; 
and without further examination he pronounced 
the bone the tibia of an Arctic bear. 



LVIII 

And then he exhibited his treasures, — the few 
that he had not yet sent on to Dublin, — several 
teeth of reindeer, beautifully serrated, ^ ^ 

, , f. ^ . . •' , Cave Treasures. 

the bones or a tmy animal, never 
found but in Arctic regions, the lemming; and 
lastly, the incisor tooth of a polar bear, about two 
inches long, its ivory as polished and perfect as if 
it were extracted only yesterday. These were taken 
from the loam or sand under the second layer of 
stalagmite, which varied in thickness from two 
inches to six ; and above which was an intercalary 
bed of loam, beneath a thicker layer of stalagmite 
on the surface. Mr. Ussher talked away in a quiet 
monotone of Pleistocene periods, of primary, sec- 
ondary, tertiary, and quarternary epochs ; of glacial 
periods ; of certain telluric revolutions, each de- 
manding eleven thousand years to round and per- 
fect. 1 heard him as in a kind of dream, for I had 



312 PARERGA 



gone off into a reverie, and was travelling through 
centuries, that would have seemed the links in the 
interminable chain of antiquity, only that Time, 
too, no matter how hoary and rusty, is but the 
youngest child of Eternity. 



LIX 

But what a history was writ in that mute piece 
of polished bone in my hand ; and how it shamed 
. „ ... the oldest palimpsest, and the still 

A Bear's Incisor. ,, , .r.^r-- iv/ri 

older handwntmg or man on Moab- 
ite stones — on walls of Nineveh or Babylon. I 
saw this northern hemisphere covered with ice. 
Yonder mountains, in whose fertile valleys men 
now find sweetness and sustenance, are covered far 
up towards their summits with perpetual snow. In 
these crevices and hollows are mighty glaciers. 
Where yonder castle is built is the top of a moraine, 
pushed out by the advancing foot of a glacier, mov- 
ing a few inches in a century. All around here is 
ice, thick, green, glistening ice, over which, in search 
of food, the mammoth with his hairy hide and huge 
eight-foot tusks, the bear, the reindeer, and the 
little marmot are roaming. There is no trace of 
man. The mighty saurians and iguanodons are 
down there in the sea. The world is old, very old ; 
and yet in its infancy. For ages are yet to go by, 
century piled upon century, before the earth shall 
be fit for its primate, man ; and it is only in the 
dim and far-off and shadowy future the first scenes 
in the great drama of human existence shall begin. 



SUMMER 313 



LX 

Hence the historic scenes of Genesis are quite of 
recent date compared with this incisor ; Babylon 
and Nineveh and the Pyramids are „ ^. 

r J rT-.!- L • J • Prehistoric. 

or yesterday. 1 his was buried in 
deep darkness long centuries before the Milesians 
set foot in Ireland; before Tirbolgs and Danaans 
fought yonder in the valley of slaughter; before 
the Druid priests raised their sacrificial knives at 
the first ray of the rising sun here in the valleys 
where Ogham stones are yet found, and huge boul- 
ders mark the place where a cromlech was erected. 
Beside its record of countless centuries, how can we 
compare human history that is measured only by 
years, and how grotesque seem to be the eras or 
epochs marked in the minute-hand of human chro- 
nologies by the birth and death of kings ! " Ever 
memorable," "historical," "spacious" (a Miltonic 
word much in use among moderns), — these are the 
expressions of historians. I suppose similar terms 
were used of Ptolemaic and other dynasties, — of a 
Sesostris and a Cyrus. 

'* * My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings! 
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! ' 
Nothing besides remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
The lone and level sands stretch far away." 

LXI 

It was a glorious day as I turned homewards 
from that black and hideous sepul- „, 

, r 1 1 • -n"! 1 1 Summer Flowers. 

chre or dead centuries. 1 he larks 

were springing upward everywhere, filling the blue 



314 PARERGA 



air with pulsations of living song. The sun shone 
fiercely. Summer showed its least attractive aspect 
in the hedgerows and trees by the wayside covered 
with fine, white dust ; and its most attractive aspect 
in the abundance of wild-flowers that starred and 
spangled the hedges all along my way. The beau- 
tiful yellow primrose had disappeared, but the pur- 
ple eyes of the wild violet looked out everywhere 
from clump and bush. I gathered a curious bou- 
quet of valerian, whose purple flowers threw out a 
heavy odour as of opiates, indicative, I suppose, of 
its value as a nerve sedative ; of the yellow broom, 
from whose golden blossoms is extracted sparteine; 
and of ladies' fingers, as the children call them, 
which yield that most powerful and least dangerous 
of anaesthetics, belladonna. Thus Nature, the great 
mother, scatters the treasures of her vast pharma- 
copoeia all along our path in life, enshrining in beauti- 
ful forms the deadliest of her poisons, the most 
sanative of her remedies, leaving it to the instinct of 
her children, as she leaves so much else, to select what 
is useful and reject what is hurtful or dangerous. 

LXII 

And I argued, Are these pretty, ephemeral things, 
flaunting their splendours for a moment in the sun- 
,.. light and then meekly dying away, of 

"All shall go ! " , ° . , ^ . ^ f ■', ' 

less import to humanity than these 
fossils, dug out with so much labour from the dei'ris 
of untold centuries ? Is Science but " a blind man's 
guess," and "History but a nurse's tale?" or, in 
other words, shall we place the dead past before 
the living present, and, just out of curiosity, and 
just to trace the age of our ancient mother back into 
the night records of a sealed and buried past, shall 



SUMMER 



315 



we undervalue this sunlight and shadow, and this 
life of plant and flower and animal ? Or shall we 
sit down here under this hawthorn tree, whose fra- 
grant blossoms are snowing down upon us, and yield 
ourselves to the melancholy meditation : 

"So careful of the type she seems. But no! 
From scarfed cliff and quarried stone 
She cries: *A thousand types are gone! 
I care for nothing. All shall go ! ' " 

LXIII 

I took up the piece of stalagmite which Mr. 
Ussher had kindly given me as a souvenir of my 
visit to the Tartarean regions of di- 
vine Science, and asked a curly-headed "' ^ ^^'^^^^' 
youngster, who was playing with cowslip " dodges " 
with his younger sister, what it was. He instantly 
conjectured, "A piece of cake." The sister an- 
swered, "A piece of bacon." Our intelligent com- 
missioners of education have not brought geology 
into our primary curriculum as yet. I brought it 
home, and exhibited it next day to more advanced 
thinkers, pointing out the eight different layers of 
granulated and crystallised carbonate of lime. I 
was then rash enough to state that, to form a layer 
of carbonate of lime one-twentieth of an inch in 
thickness from raindrops, percolating through the 
roof of a cave, would take from two hundred to 
two hundred and fifty years ; and that therefore that 
piece of stalagmite was in course of formation about 
seven or eight thousand years ! They smiled at 
me with a patronising air of incredulity. Clearly, 
science is not going to conquer the world by a mag- 
nificent couj) de main. 



3i6 PARERGA 



Section III 
LXIV 

There was a stampede of small boys to-day, as I 

approached, during early school-hours, the enclosure 

where a number of circus-waggons, 

A Stampede. . ,, , . i i- j . && ^ 

m all their splendid war-paints, were 
collected. It was a small, third-rate circus, for the 
great and mighty ones would not condescend to 
visit an out-of-the-way village like this. But what 
does that matter to the small boy ? It was a circus, 
and that was enough. It was a harbinger of Sum- 
mer for one thing; and old memories, old sensa- 
tions, old dreams, old fascinations, began to wake 
up from under the dread realism that comes from an 
experience of forty years. As the boys who were 
playing truant scampered off, an old man said to me : 

" Lave 'em alone, yer reverence ! You don't 
know what a circus is to a boy ! " 

God bless his old child-heart, and his toothless 
mouth, and his old wrinkled face ! Not know what 
a circus is to a boy ? And forthwith up there came 
from the dark realms of memory pictures and pan- 
oramas, and with them such dear old tender sensa- 
tions and associations I could almost have cried for 
their pathos and tenderness. 

LXV 

" Not know what a circus means to a boy ? " As 
if I ever could forget the delight, the rapture, the 

enthusiasm that filled my heart, when 
Boy'.J^'^"^ *° ^ the first flaring posters, three yards 

in length and two in depth, greeted 
our eyes on our way to school. How the yellow 



SUMMER 317 



and red figures and letters, the gorgeous ladies and the 
immortal clowns, danced before our eyes all day 
and every day, until the circus came, and blotted 
out those black and white abominations called 
books ! How we speculated and guessed and 
argued and fought over the possible incidents that 
were to make this circus the einzige, the only one that 
was worth talking about. How we started from 
bed at unearthly hours when the first rumble of 
the monster waggons was heard in the street, and, 
half dressed, feasted our eyes on the golden sculp- 
tures of lions and dragons that bedizened the great 
waggons as they thundered beneath our windows. 
How, despising such paltry things as mere break- 
fasts, we hastened to feast our eyes on the few 
things we were permitted to behold through the 
iron gates of the enclosure ! With what heavy 
hearts we went to early school ; and how we envied 
the courage of the truants, who dared the master's 
anger (and fast and furious was his anger), and 
" mitched," " slinged," or " slanged" all the forenoon 
beneath the cars and ropes and masts that lay in 
glorious confusion all around ! With what a whoop 
of delight we trooped out of school, half killing 
each other in our eagerness ; and watched and 
watched until, amidst our enthusiastic cheers, the 
white cone of canvas shot up into the sky, and 
the red pennant floated proudly across the azure. 

LXVI 

" Not know what a circus is to a boy ^. " As if 
we could ever forget the rapture, the ecstasy of see- 
ing the twenty dappled horses come ^^ „ 

,°, ri 11 1 c The Procession. 

slowly out from beneath the arch or 

the old market-house, and the first thunder of the 



3i8 PARERGA 



big drum was heard, and we watched, with a wonder 
and admiration that never yet was given to a crowned 
head, the proprietor of the circus aloft in plain 
clothes, as beseemed his dignity, and holding in his 
hands the twenty long lassoes or reins of polished 
leather with which he governed and guided his noble 
steeds. Talk of Phaeton and his chariot of the 
sun ; of Mazeppa on his thundering steed ! They 
vanished into insignificance before the sublime spec- 
tacle of one man guiding twenty restive horses 
through a cheering and tumultuous crowd 1 And 
then the gorgeous bandsmen, and then the dainty 
carriages, on wheels as high as the Ferris-wheel of 
Chicago ; and the young ladies, so saucy and so 
insouciances, clothed in gorgeous habits of blue velvet 
embroidered in silver, or red velvet embroidered in 
gold ; and the men, like knights of old on their 
palfreys, and the boys (oh ! how we envied them) 
on their little ponies ; and last of all, Grimaldi, the 
immortal clown, his face painted white with red 
blotches here and there, and his conical cap and 
his mock terror as he guided the three prettiest 
little ponies, and seemed to be always in the act of 
saving himself from falling. How we cheered and 
yelled and ran ourselves out of breath when the 
procession, that had set out in so dignified a manner, 
returned at a gallop, and the whole gorgeous vision 
vanished like a dream of the night, when the soul, 
emancipated, wanders like a spirit in the House of 
Sleep ! 

LXVII 

" Not know what a circus is to a boy ? " God 
„ . , ^ bless your old foolish heart, as if 

Fairyland. t i i r i 

1 could ever forget the transports 
(calmer, I admit, than those with which we watched 



SUMMER 319 



the procession, but still transports) when our elders 
bought our tickets, and we entered triumphant 
through the canvas avenue that led to elysium ! 
The odour of the flaring naphtha and the pine-dust 
on the arena is in my nostrils to-day, just as the 
fairy visions of ladies, or sylphs, or fays leaping 
through paper hoops and alighting safely on the 
backs of the galloping horses, and the terror of the 
pole-climber, and the antics of the clowns, and 
the cracking of whips fill the long-closed avenues of 
eyes and ears 1 Ah me ! what a fairyland is child- 
hood ! But that, too, is evanescent. Else why did 
I experience that sinking of the heart, that depres- 
sion of spirits, when next morning (and the weath- 
er, although it was May, seemed to accommodate 
itself to my moods) I watched the vast cavalcade 
slowly trooping out from the archway, the two 
great elephants in front, and saw it disappear 
around the corner, and listened for the last rumble 
of the waggons as they proceeded to some far-away 
and happy place, and wondered why there was not 
a perpetual circus established everywhere for the 
delight of small boys and the discomfiture of mer- 
cenary schoolmasters ? 

LXVIII 

Yet is it not a most beautiful provision of Nature, 
that which stretches out so long that they seem in- 
terminable those happy days of child- ^, .,^, ^ 

, J , 1 1 '^^••^ ^ Childhood. 

hood, and only hurries us on to our 
final rest when sorrows fall thick as snowflakes, and 
we are painfully treading our via dolorosa towards the 
grave ? Who can ever forget the long, long, sun- 
shiny days in Summer, when he played down in the 
deep dell or glen by the river that dwarfed itself. 



320 PARERGA 



apparently for his accommodation here, and ex- 
panded in lustrous shallows there ; and the long 
green flags and water-grasses waved so beautifully 
and so lazily in the silent current, and the purple 
and yellow iris shone resplendent, and the dragon- 
fly, clad in his iridescent coat of mail, poised himself 
on invisible wings amongst the rushes and swordlike 
flags ; and he watched, with childish proclivities 
towards destruction, the sticklebacks that hid be- 
neath the primrosed banks and guarded their young, 
and captured their food in the white caterpillars that 
tried to bury themselves in the hollow sheaths of 
decayed branches deep down in the loam and sand 
of the stream. And our little loves, and our little 
hatreds ; and the songs that come back so sweetly 
from the haunted chambers of memory. Ah ! days 
of childhood, so long and sweet and sunny and un- 
clouded, save for the dappling of a moment's shower, 
or the tiny shadow of some cloudlet of sorrow, ye 
shall not return ! No ! ye shall not return any 
more for ever! Vale, vale, longum vale! 

LXIX 

But the old man's observation, besides starting 
these trains of memory, also suggested a thought, — 
. „ ^ , that really it is a rare virtue, or ac- 

A Rare Talent. i- i i 111 

comphshment or talent, to be able 
to enter into the minds of others and see things 
through their eyes. This is especially true of chil- 
dren. I have met very few, scarcely one, indeed, 
in a long experience of teachers and preceptors, who 
had the genius of understanding the child-mind. It 
is only those who have the power of retrospection, 
and who can transport themselves in fancy to the 
days of childhood, it is only those, who can under- 



SUMMER 



321 



stand the complex and mysterious associations of 
that realm which they have left for ever. I have 
found it impossible to convince parents that their 
children have, by nature and heredity, the very sen- 
timents and passions which animated or tortured 
themselves in childhood and adolescence. Guided 
altogether by the senses and the exterior, they are 
utterly incapable of penetrating the secret recesses 
of the child-mind ; and they seem to have broken, 
at the outset, the lamp of experience, which, after 
all, is the very pharos-light of reason, and which 
would cast its luminous and penetrating rays far 
down through the intricate galleries of childhood's 
thoughts and aspirations. And hence the sowing 
of baneful seeds, and the planting of poisonous 
habits, right under the eyes of the parents ; for we 
know well how secretive and close are the minds 
of children, and how, even under the detective 
eye of love and anxiety, many a dark thought or 
darker deed may be entertained and practised with 
impunity. 

LXX 

And so, too, in the matter of intellectual training. 
For centuries the course of instruction in our great 
universities has remained practically ^^ „^.,^ , 

, J ^L . • • J The Child, the 

unchanged. i he same trivtum and Enigma. 
quadrivium that filled the hours of 
students in the universities of Paris and Bologna 
are the curriculum to-day in Oxford and Cambridge; 
and even if modern requirements shall introduce 
innovations in scientific and technical details, it is 
still certain that Oxford will ever be the classical, 
and Cambridge the mathematical centre to all Eng- 
land. But in the matter of primary education, there 



322 PARERGA 



is eternal confusion and eternal change. The child 
is the enigma ! From Pestalozzi down to Her- 
bart, and from Herbart to Spencer and Arnold, 
educationalists have been puzzled by the infantine 
mind. They cannot get behind its secrets. The 
intricacies and mazes of the tiny labyrinth are so 
many and so delicate that the mature mind cannot 
push its way through. Hence the ever-changing 
programmes, the substitution of one scheme for 
another, the adoption of hand-and-eye training to- 
day, and psychological training to-morrow, and the 
doubt that seems to haunt the minds of all that 
somehow they are on the wrong track, and can only 
retrace their steps when perhaps infinite mischief has 
been wrought in the minds of the rising generation. 
All seem to admit that primary education hitherto 
has been a deplorable failure both in the develop- 
ment of the intellect and the training of the senses. 

LXXI 

But in the higher life, I often think that the 
same inability to penetrate into the minds and under- 
stand the feelings of others lies at 
tha^n o??s^^ the root of all these racial and relig- 

ious prejudices that have wrought 
such havoc to humanity. It is the rarest of rare 
talents — this of being able to see things through 
other eyes than ours. If one considers for a mo- 
ment that each mind has its own idiosyncrasies, and 
clings to its own infallibility, it is easy to understand 
the difficulty of reconciling the repellent tendencies 
and mutual antipathies that must exist between 
races and religions. Home influences, early educa- 
tion, later reading of one-sided and prejudiced 



SUMMER 323 



books, the interchange of common and hostile ideas 
on one subject — must of necessity create a bulwark 
of prejudice that it seems impossible to break 
through or subvert. We all know the totally ab- 
surd opinions that are entertained towards churches 
of different denominations, — towards members of 
a hostile race, or a hostile political party. In the 
vast majority of such cases the prejudices are irre- 
movable and ineradicable. No amount of reasoning 
can convince ; no appeal can soften. They have 
never learned to go outside themselves and see 
through others' eyes. Man, to be wise, must study 
the vices and virtues of which human nature is 
capable, first in himself, and then, in all good faith, 
in others. 

LXXII 

I well remember a distinguished convert to the 
Catholic Church telling me that, when a boy, and 
even when he had passed into adoles- 
cence, he never passed the humble ^^J^l Preju- 
and modest Catholic church in the 
city where he lived, without flying past it at racing 
speed. When I asked him what he dreaded, he 
answered he didn't know! It was nothing specific; 
but some vague sensation that there was something 
inside these walls horrible beyond imagination ; 
some occult and dark doings, which were not to be 
examined or approached, but fled from in terror. 
It was clearly his early education, — the home and 
Sunday-school teaching that the Catholic Church 
stood for something unnameable — that it was the 
symbol of darkness, the outer shell and simulacrum 
of everything men shrink from and avoid. Prob- 
ably that man would have carried these prejudices 



324 PARERGA 



to his grave if he had not met with some one who 
saw through his eyes, made account of all his per- 
verse imaginations, and gradually opened the eyes 
of his mind to see what horrible and unreal phan- 
tasms had been haunting it, and how needful it was 
to employ the prompt exorcism of reason to expel 
them for ever. And strange to say, this was but an 
accident, — the accident of his sister's conversion, 
and the accident of his proceeding to London in a 
frenzy of zeal and anger, first to remonstrate with the 
priest who had received her into the Church, and 
then to convert that priest from the errors of 
Catholicism. He met his Ananias, and the scales 
fell from his eyes. 

LXXIII 

But if we were to suppose, per impossibile^ that we 
could stand by the side of our brothers who differ 

so widely and radically from us, and 
of^Expedence. ^ith a Sympathy born of Christian 

charity could enter into their passion- 
ate prejudices and feelings, and make allowance for 
all the converging causes that led up to this harden- 
ing of the heart, and think what we ourselves might 
have been had we been born and educated in similar 
circumstances, how it would widen our horizon of 
thought, help us to look around things, instead of 
merely at them, and help us to deal gently with all 
those unmeaning and irrational ideas that grow so 
slowly and take such deep and almost ineradicable 
root in human souls. The thoughts of men on all 
possible subjects differ as widely as their features; 
and even where they externally seem to agree, that is, 
when placed in words or actions, there is still a pro- 
found difference. And we must not suppose that 



SUMMER 



325 



all the wisdom of world is stored up and centred be- 
neath the dura mater of our brain, ^i vit sans folic 
n est pas si sage quil croit ; and whatever wisdom or 
knowledge we possess comes mainly through ex- 
perience, which always teaches the kindred and 
collateral lesson of our own impotence and folly. 

LXXIV 

No man can judge of insanity but the insane. 
There are as many forms of insanity as there are 
brain-cells ; and, if you look over the 
motor and sensory areas, and try to ^^ insane, 
study the internal construction and ramification of 
each with its millions of cells, and remember how 
one diseased cell might easily set up that want of pro- 
portion in ideas, or that lack of nerve control which 
we designate as insanity, it is easy to perceive the 
value of the opinions of experts. There is no stronger 
argument against capital punishment than the im- 
possibility of determining who is sane, and who is 
insane ; and there is something pathetic and tragic 
in the curious tradition that a man's Hfe may be 
made dependent on the opinion of two experts who, 
presumably sane themselves, are utterly unqualified 
to express an opinion on the condition of the insane. 
The secret working of the brain-cells of a Plato or 
a Shakspeare is not more of a mystery to a Hotten- 
tot, who has just emerged into civilisation than the 
secret working of the diseased brain is to one who 
has never had experience in his own mind of that 
phenomenal, and yet quite common disturbance. 
Few men pass through life without acting once at 
least in an insane manner; and if we could read hu- 
man thoughts as Omniscience does, what a vast and 



326 PARERGA 



tumultuous asylum would not this earth appear ! 
" This beautiful madhouse of the earth," said Jean 
Paul. " Life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound 
and fury, signifying nothing," saith Shakspeare. 



LXXV 

The senses, the imagination, the words of men, 
traditions, the habits of life all around us, the stere- 
j^^j .^ otyped forms and manners of society, 

the lies that are fossilised by the ages, 
the tricks and pranks that mask deception under an 
appearance of bonhomie^ and, above all, our own 
poor selves seem to be engaged in a horrid conspir- 
acy to make our lives one long delusion until our 
final consummatum. To know that happiness is in 
ourselves, and not in our circumstances ; to be able 
to take the ordinary and accredited beliefs of men 
and sift them, and examine them, and separate the 
chaff of folly from the grain of wisdom ; to look 
out with our own eyes upon the world, and to take 
sidelights on human happenings and events from 
others' experience, — is a very rare talent. We run 
amuck with the crowd when the panic of life seizes 
us. We follow its train of thought, adopt its hab- 
its, walk in its ways, although we loathe ourselves 
for so doing. It is a rare thing to see a strong man 
step aside and pursue his own course undeterred by 
human hostile opinion ; who has the strength of 
silent scorn to uphold him, and let the mad world 
wag on to destruction. " Oh, all you that pass by 
the way," saith the beggar with the crucifix, whilst 
the gay and happy pairs of youthful lovers, conning 
flowers or toying with jewels, pass down the stair- 
cases and corridors of life. " Come apart and rest 



SUMMER 



327 



a little while," was the sweet invitation of the Divine 
Being, who knew how easily his poor disciples would 
throng after the ruck and rout of motley crowds to 
share in their poor, sickly, and dishonest adulation. 
" Come apart," — into the desert aloof and alone, — 
the silent stars above your heads, and the Eternal 
One by your side. 

LXXVI 

I once knew a man of an imaginative tempera- 
ment who laboured all his life long under a singular 
delusion. He was a merchant i" ^ a ^ 
great city; and, like all other mer- " xamp e. 
chants, his daily life was the drudgery of living from 
ten o'clock in the morning to six o'clock in the 
evening in a damp, dirty office, screened away from 
a vault filled with vast puncheons of wine and spir- 
its, cobwebbed and grey with the dust of antiquity. 
The office window, very dirty also, and lined with 
venerable cobwebs, barely allowed the eye to rest 
on the blank wall of another warehouse about six 
feet across a narrow alley. Even in Summer and 
at noonday the gas flared above his desk ; and 
through the twilight the figures of men — porters, 
labourers, customers — passed to and fro all day long 
to exchange opinions and transact business. The 
daily programme of the poor slave was : 

Rise at 8 a. m. 

Breakfast at 8.45. 

Train to city. 

Office work from 10 a. m. to 6 p. m. 

Train homewards. 

Dinner at 7 p. m. 

Newspaper. 

Bed, 10 p. M. 



328 PARERGA 



Sunday was broken up by a morning service and 
an afternoon that seemed interminable. He took a 
yearly holiday at some European watering-place, 
where he was killed from ennui and society. 



LXXVII 

He was a wealthy man, but not a happy man. 
During his first twenty years, buoyed up and car- 
ried on by the stream of youthful 
CeuS^*^^"* hopefulness and ambition, he really 
exulted in his work, although the 
frictions of daily life began to wear down his nerves, 
and the question would persistently arise and refuse 
an answer: " Whereunto tends all this waste and 
work ? " Then, one day, he took up a volume of 
essays dealing with the attractions of country life ; 
the folly of treading the daily mill until we dropped 
into the grave ; and the wisdom of saying at some 
period or other of life, " Soul, sleep now, and take 
thy rest ! " The idea haunted him for weeks and 
weeks ; and the recollection of a certain pretty villa 
down near the sea, where he had spent a few sum- 
mer weeks, came up at office-time to disturb his 
serenity, and compel him to think that he was 
spending all the most glorious years of his life — a 
slave chained in a cellar. One day, too, a farm- 
ing acquaintance of his dropped in, and, looking in 
a half-frightened way about the lugubrious place, 
said : " Good heavens, man, surely you don't live 
here? Why, one hour of these wine-smells and 
spirit-odours would chloroform me into eternity ! 
Come out, man, and live a human life ! Come out, 
and see our trees and rivers, and hear the winds 
whistling, and the brooks laughing, and the birds 



SUMMER 



329 



singing, and breathe the honest air of heaven, and 
not the mephitic vapours of the tomb." The mer- 
chant shook his head, but the lesson went home. 



LXXVIII 

He now bent eagerly to his task, because he had 
a definite object before him, — namely, to build up 
as rapidly as possible a fortune that 
would help him to get away from the i°n?er ^'"^^ 
chain-gang and the for^at^ and spend 
the evening of his life in tranquil study (for he was 
a reader) and calm contemplation and enjoyment 
of nature unto the end. One morning he noticed 
a grey patch over his left ear; and he thought, I 
must push on and work harder, if I am to have time 
for my evening holiday at the end. And all the 
time that villa above the sea would float in a misty 
picture, framed in cloud shadows, but richly gilded, 
above his dusty, ink-stained desk ; and every night, 
as he closed the latter with a snap, he looked around 
and said : " Only a little longer; a few years more, 
and farewell, you dusty wine-bins and cobwebbed 
bottles, for ever and ever ! " And then he began 
to watch the papers for advertisements of sales of 
seaside villas ; and he began to dream, and dream, 
and ever dream of vast, beautiful oceans, with the 
white flame of a sail on the horizon, and long, 
purple twilights that dreamed themselves away into 
night, and a dusky library crammed with all pre- 
cious volumes, and peace, peace, and rest, rest, for 
the long evening of a happy life ! 



330 PARERGA 



LXXIX 

At last the wished-for opportunity seemed to 
arise in accordance with his wishes. He had seen 
^ „ in the late springtime just the thing 

he had dreamed of so long, — the 
long white villa facing the ocean, the little lawn 
in front sloping gently downwards ; the sudden, 
abrupt cliff, the waves crawling or tumbling in 
hoarse riotousness beneath ; and, behind, the deep, 
dewy fields of a valley, where a brown cow was 
grazing calmly, and a few sheep dotted the upland 
beyond, where the trees fringed the horizon and 
broke up the blue radiance of the sky. If he could 
have designed into actual existence the place and 
the circumstances he had so often desired, it could 
not have been better framed unto his wishes. With 
beating heart he read the legend "To Let" on the 
window-pane, and hastened to inquire — and pur- 
chase. He was so eager now to get away from the 
wine-cave and the cellar that he would not hire the 
place. No ! he should become the absolute owner, 
so that no man could ever disturb his inheritance of 
such an elysium. It should be his from the zenith 
to the nadir, — from the centre of the earth to the 
dome of heaven ; and no man should venture on 
the sacred precincts without license or on trespass. 
He was surprised, almost shocked, to find how little 
was asked for it. He closed the bargain at once, 
and became the happy possessor. 



SUMMER 331 



LXXX 

Then the ravens began to croak. They pre- 
dicted that he would tire of the place in a month, 
in a quarter, at furthest in a year. 
"Wait," they said, "till November. 
Wait till the rains come down and the sea is blotted 
out, and he shall not see from week's end to week's 
end the face of a human being, except a half-tipsy 
fisherman or a strait-laced coast-guard. Then he 
will pine for the electric light and tram, for the roar 
and bustle of the city." He heard it all, and calmly 
winked to himself. Envy ! envy ! The bane of 
gods and men ! The ever-present, never-exorcised 
demon that haunts all human hearts, and makes 
them sink at the thought of others' happiness ! 
No matter: he will go on in spite of all; nay, he 
will bring down all these croakers in the early Sum- 
mer and kill them, one by one, by the spectacle of 
his happiness ! Well, he did bring them down, but 
happily there was no homicide. They came, ad- 
mired, rejoiced, and departed. He showed them 
how easily and pleasantly one could slip down in 
undress in the early, warm summer morning, and, 
descending the spiral iron ladder, plunge at once 
into the glorious sea. He taught them how to 
lounge, and kill time, and loll upon garden chairs 
after dinner, and smoke away the long, delicious 
summer evenings, and play nap in the open air, and 
drink — sherbet? And if any landsman tired of 
the sea, he took him to the valley and expatiated 
upon cows and corn. 



332 PARERGA 



LXXXI 

They all admitted that it was glorious, delicious, 
a fragment of Eden very much improved, because 

for the sluggish Tigris here was the 
of^de^^"* heaving and restless, the treacherous 

and magic sea. They all said how de- 
lightful it was to go to sleep with your high windows 
open, and the breath of the clover was borne into 
your bedroom with the murmurs of the enchanted 
sea ; and how transcendently pleasant it was to sit 
down to one's breakfast after an appetising morning 
bath, and break your egg or fish whilst you glanced 
at the broad levels of shining sea before the win- 
dow. But those evenings, those celestial evenings, 
when the setting sun empurpled the great cliffs 
opposite, and the vast mirror of the ocean modestly 
mirrored in pink and gold the gorgeous decorations 
of rock and headland ; and tiny feathers of yacht- 
sails, or the larger canvases of fishing-boats swept 
as in a hollow mirror from rim to rim of the hori- 
zon ; and the plash of oars came up from the sea ; 
and the muffled voices of young girls came borne in 
upon the warm breeze; and the great moon came 
up blood-red from her sea-bath and paled into yel- 
low glory as she mounted her steep escarpment of 
the sky, — ah, those celestial evenings ! No wonder 
anxious hearts should whisper, in affected deprecia- 
tion : " You have no chance of heaven, old man, 
after this ! " 



SUMMER 



333 



LXXXII 

But he would only laugh — the happy possessor 
always laughs — and puff away at his cigar in happy 
contentment, and rail at the dusty 
city, and the noises and the cob- di^^f.* ^ ^"^" 
webbed cellar, and say : " My dear 
fellow, half the world does not know what life is." 

And the young men applauded and said : 

" Quite right. When you 've made your pile, it 
is wise and right to step down and aside, and leave 
a chance for the young." 

But the old men, although they hankered after 
such freedom and happiness, whispered to each other 
as they sped upwards to the city by the evening 
train : 

" Do you know, I think old seemed to look 

wistfully after us. Wait till November ! I 'd bet 
a dozen of the best Havanas he'll be back in his 
office again ! " 

But their wives said : 

" What a delightful place for children to play in 
for three months of Summer ! What a shame that 
such a place should be in the hands of a wretched 
old bachelor ! " 

They had been just praising his cook, and his 
dinners, and his delicious tea ; they had still wet 
on their pretty lips : 

" Oh, Mr. , what a Paradise ! " 



334 PARERGA 



LXXXIII 

And so the weeks sped on. The " Villa " had 

almost become a show place. Every visitor to the 

seaside should see it, and praise it. 

Memory. _,, l 

1 he owner was very nappy. 
Sometimes, indeed, the days dragged heavily on- 
ward. It was not always sunshine. There were 
times when a cold, grey look was on the sea, and 
the cliffs in the distance across the bay looked black 
and threatening; and one by one, the visitors were 
departing for their winter homes, and the faces of 
the little children began to disappear. Then the 
terrific tyranny of old habits began to assert itself. 
The holiday was over ; and every fibre and muscle 
began to clamour for old occupations, — the never- 
ceasing, ever-rolling routine of hours consecrated to 
business, and hostile to slothfulness. He argued 
and expostulated against the tyranny in vain. He 
pleaded that he had had a life of unremitting toil and 
anxiety ; that he had a right to rest in the evening 
of life ; that he was past labour now ; and that peace 
and dignity were the rightful perquisites and pre- 
rogatives of age. In vain ! Every faculty was 
clamouring for employment, protesting against the 
degradation of being wasted away in rusty sloth ; 
and the imagination, spurred by the tyranny of habit, 
and beaten back upon itself by the frigid aspect of 
external nature, began to call up with tender and 
solemn pity the days of labour that had passed ; the 
fifty years in the warehouse ; and all the many 
circumstances, which, bald and vulgar and prosaic 
enough in reality, came now from the caves of the 
past under the softened and hallowed light of mem- 
ory, the great transformer, and scene-shifter, and 
stage-manager of life. 



SUMMER 335 



I 



LXXXIV 

He tried to shake off the despondency, but in 
vain. He set himself, during these sad September 
days, to the task of reading and 
working. He laid out a programme ^^^°'^ ^"^^" 
for the winter months. He would read Shakspeare 
through and through. He commenced. After 
half an hour's conscientious labour on "Hamlet" 
he grew tired, and went out. Yes ! there was the 
calm, irresponsive. Sphinx-like face of the sea, cold 
and grey like that battered and mutilated demon-face 
that stares over the desert sands, and seems to be 
contemplating infinity from eternity. He went 
back to his beautiful library, sick at heart. The 
early fires were burning in the grate, — of summer 
valedictory, of winter premonitory. The beautiful 
books in all manner of costly bindings gleamed from 
the shelves ; and between them and above them, 
shone fair pictures, with deep, rich, gorgeous frames ; 
and lapping their edges were fairy palms and costly 
evergreens, purchased in the richest nurseries in the 
city. What do I want? the man cried. Here is 
what I have been seeking after for thirty years ; and 
lo ! it is ashes in my mouth. He went out again. 
Not a sail flamed across the surface of the deep ; 
not a fishing-boat made a speck across the grey 
monotony. And all was silent, songs of maidens, 
laughter of children, except with the sounds of 
eternity. 



336 PARERGA 



LXXXV 

Two hours to luncheon ! He took his cane and 
went out. He called on the curate, asked, begged, 

implored him to dine with him. 

He had not troubled much about him 
while the summer visitors were flitting around. He 
strolled over the cliffs. A few peasants were digging 
out potatoes; the white sheep nibbled lazily the 
short grass ; far beneath, the waves rolled heavily in, 
heaving as if in gasps of spent energy their bulk of 
waters against the broken boulders ; the grey, 
solemn light lay brooding over sea and land; far 
away, far, far away, on the horizon line, a plume of 
dark vapour marked the course of a passing ship. 
And everywhere silence, deep terrible silence as of 
chaos before the turbulent voices of humanity were 
heard ; as of a ruined world, when the voice of 
humanity will be heard no more, — silence, except 
for the wash of the waters, that would be soothing 
perhaps to tired and worn nerves, but that now 
sounded harsh and hoarse in the ears of the man 
who had passed out of touch with nature, because 
he had stepped out of his place, and refused to take 
his part in the vast working-sheds and laboratories 
of the universe. 

LXXXVI 

He lunched with little appetite, and drank more 

than was good for him. Then he lounged along 

, the lawn and smoked cigar after cigar. 

Twenty times he looked at his watch, 

and counted the hours to dinner. He took up 

"Hamlet" again; and remained for some time 



SUMMER 



337 



brooding over the soliloquy of suicide. He flung 
down the book, and went out. He tried to get 
into conversation with a few rough, weather-tanned 
fishermen, who lounged up against the quay-wall. 
He could only elicit a monosyllable. He walked 
over the cliffs again ; and after another two hours of 
misery, he returned to dinner. The good-natured 
curate was there. Two hours passed pleasantly by. 
Then a sick-call was brought, and the man was 
again alone, — alone with one word the curate, with 
no ill intention, had spoken: "How, in God's 
name, can you live here, after your experience of 
city life ? " He brooded over it the whole evening 
through. He went to bed in a cheerless mood, 
and dreamt that the spirit of the Sea, the Old Man 
of the Sea, stood beside his bed, and kept murmur- 
ing all the night through, — " Alone !"" Alone!" 
"Alone!" He woke up in the dreary dawn, and 
heard the hoarse wash of the sea murmuring : 
" Alone ! " " Alone ! " " Alone ! " 



Lxxxvn 

And suddenly, swiftly, as if in a sudden eclipse 
of light and cessation of sound, the Winter closed 
in. There never had been so short 

f, rr^i 1 J 1 Winter closes in. 

a bummer. i here had been no 
Autumn. The days seemed to close up, as you 
would close a telescope ; and the nights swooped 
down and hung their raven wings, poised above the 
desolation of nature, as if they could never close 
and vanish again. The dreadful loneliness and idle- 
ness hung heavy on the spirit of the man. He 
began to loathe the face of the sea. It seemed to 
stare back on him from its great expanses, cold and 



338 PARERGA 



colourless as a corpse ; and the great cliffs beyond 
seemed to close in like the walls of a grave of gran- 
ite, so dark and gloomy, so hard and adamantine 
they seemed. He ceased gazing on the gloomy spec- 
tacle, and turned aside to the valley. Here, too, 
was all the aspect of wintry desolation — heavy fogs 
morning and evening, withered bracken, blanched 
grass which the cows ate reluctantly, and broken 
mangolds which his workman had scattered here 
and there across the field. And if he lifted his eyes, 
there afar off was the thin dark line of the horizon, 
where the cold blue light seemed to shiver under the 
lowering and ragged skies. 



LXXXVIII 

To accentuate his misery, the morning paper 

brought news of the great city, — of its theatres, 

with new plays and brilliant compa- 

A Crisis. . r • i i j 

mes ; or its concerts, where world- 
famed artists sang for money or charity ; of great 
balls with military bands, and long columns of the 
names of citizens well-known to him ; and the 
vision of the brilliant and well-lighted city, of its 
long rows of gas lamps and electric lamps, of its 
rumbling tramcars, its wet pavements, the crowds 
of men and women passing to and fro, and all the 
human and even tender associations which are every- 
where leagued with great masses of humanity, rose 
up before him as he sauntered in melancholy mad- 
ness above the sea, or stared, with his finger in the 
pages of the unread book, at the coals that sparkled 
and burned in the grate by his lonely hearthside. 
It was so sad, nothing but shame and the dread of 
being laughed at kept him from fleeing instantly 



SUMMER 339 



from the uncanny place. Then one day his two 
servants gave notice simultaneously. It capped his 
climax of misery. Next evening he was in the 
city. 

LXXXIX 

Although he had been but a few weeks absent, 
he felt like a stranger in a strange land. The 
tumult of the streets thrilled him 
through and through ; the vibration 
of the tramcar seemed to penetrate his nerves, and 
he trembled as he rose up awkwardly from the seat, 
and groped his way with many a stop and stumble 
towards the entrance. He glided like a shamed 
ghost through the streets, afraid to be recognised ; 
afraid of the Hallo^ old man ! which would mean 
insufferable things. He watched with the interest 
of a child who had come up to the city for the first 
time, the lighted shops, the sparkling jewellery, the 
long counters in warehouses, with their lines of 
well-groomed clerks and well-dressed girls, curious, 
watchful, eager ; he sniffed up the odours from 
the restaurants as a hungry man maddened with 
the want of food; he could almost have hugged the 
newsboys, who shouted : E-e-evning Echo-o-o ! At 
last he stood at the entrance to the narrow street 
where the offices and warehouses were, and paused. 
How would he enter? How face the welcome 
he was sure to receive; or worse still, the smiles 
and winks of his employes, with their deadly, yet 
kindly meaning : / told you ! 



340 PARERGA 



XC 

He did the wisest thing he could do under 
the circumstances. He entered the old premises 
dramatically. That is — he almost 
EnS"""^*"" leaped in upon the sawdusted flags, 

shouted to the alarmed porters and 
labourers : " Clear out of my way ! " pushed one or 
two aside, who thought an escaped maniac had got 
amongst them, and then took a hop, step, and 
jump, and landed safely in his old chair beside the 
grimy, ink-covered desk. When he was recognised 
there was a shout of laughter, and all was over. 
The ancient partner came in. 

" You 've come back ? " 

" Yes ! Don't say, for God's sake, ^ I knew it ! ' 
or * I told you so ! ' " 

" All right ! " 

" I '11 take my old place and hand you back the 
rhino ! " 

"Very good. 'Twas a tight shave though. 
McAUister wanted to throw ten thousand into 
the concern to-day." 

" You did n't ? " with a face of alarm. 

" No ! I expected something. See ! your name 
is yet on our bill-heads ! " 

" Thanks, old man ! Now, tell me, is the old 
house let as yet? " 

" I 'm not sure. I think not. The bills were in 
the window last Sunday ! " 

" Would you — would you — mind seeing after it 
for me ? " 

" All right. To-morrow, or perhaps Thursday — " 

" Great Scott, man ! Some pedler will have swal- 
lowed it up by then. Look here! 'T is only five 
o'clock. Run down to Henry's, will you ? " 



SUMMER 



341 



"All right. You 're in the deuce of a fright." 

"No matter. And ask Henry to put in an ad. 
to-morrow : 

" To be let or sold. Beautiful marine villa; splen- 
did sea-view ; lawn ; spiral staircase to sea ; beach ; 
meadow-lands, etc., etc. But — no name ! mind, no 
name ! " 

"All right ! Of course, you 're coming to us until 
you settle ? " 

" May I ? You 're too good. But how can I 
face Kate? She'll torment the life out of me ! " 

" Never fear ! She 's too glad to see you back. 
And won't the youngsters kick up the deuce of a 
shindy ! " 

" Gosh ! I hope they will. Let me see. I have 
time to run down to the London. I must bring 
them something. You '11 come back, won't you, 
and tell us about the house ? " 



XCI 

Then he sank into a pleasant reverie, watching all 
the while the corpulent and pompous puncheons, 
and seeming to expect every moment . _ 

, r ° 1 ^ • c • A Reverie. 

a salvo from the vast tiers or wme 
bottles that seemed like tiny batteries of artillery 
peeping from their loopholes and embrasures. 
When no one was looking, he stepped softly down 
from his desk, and going over he actually kissed 
the steel ribs of an old Jack FalstafF of a whiskey 
cask, that had shone and glistened in its dusty cave 
for half a century. Then closing-time came, his 
partner returned, and he stepped out on the wet 
pavement again. For a moment he watched the 
crowd of people passing and repassing, a motley 



342 PARERGA 



crowd, made up of every element of humanity, 
from the young empresses who, clad in their furs 
and sealskins, seemed to spurn the very flags be- 
neath their feet, to the poor, decrepit creatures who 
begged an alms, or the wretched and degraded hu- 
manity which gathered around the doors of saloons. 
Then, with a sigh and a little smile he passed on, 
paused for a moment, and leaned over the parapet 
of the bridge and saw a Milky Way of lights on 
quays and ships and waves, and then, humbled and 
happy, he accompanied his partner to his hospitable 
home. 

XCII 

A few weeks later he came in as usual one morn- 
ing to business, put up his overcoat and hat, sorted, 
» . ^, , opened, and read his letters, wrote 

And Then? , T ' , . ,. , ' , 

his replies, gave his little orders here 
and there, read the morning paper, and went out to 
a neighbouring restaurant at the men's dinner hour, 
for a modest lunch. When one o'clock had struck, 
and the porters and labourers trooped back from 
dinner, they found him asleep in his office chair. It 
was unusual, but they did not mind. "Old age!" 
they said. Later on in the day, he still slept; and 
then they thought he was unusually still. They 
shook him up and called his name. There was no 
answer, — none until the Great Assize. He had 
died at his task, — chained as he would have said 
with bitterness a few months ago, chained like a 
galley-slave to his tapk. But the bitterness had 
disappeared under the test of experience. He had 
died in harness, in the midst of his work ; and what 
death could be more honourable or desirable ? 



SUMMER 



343 



XCIII 

But how did I drift into this story ? I had no 
notion of telling it. How did it originate ? Oh, 
yes ! I was philosophising in my own 
senile way on the difficulty of under- Sapp^ness* °^ 
standing others and interpreting their 
thoughts, on the visions of childhood and manhood, 
on the discontent of general humanity at its concom- 
itant circumstances, and its sad want of knowledge 
of the fact that our happiness is not to be sought 
in our circumstances, but in ourselves. Here our 
Wordsworth comes in triumphant. The poet of 
meditation, not of action, he draws us close to his 
breast, which is the breast of mother Nature, and 
whispers as to a sick child those little lessons of 
peace and wisdom nowhere else to be found but in 
the Book of Life. But, like some hidden nook of 
Paradise, where the sick and the nerveless and the 
world-worn fly for a while to get away from the fret- 
fulness and racket of the world, his philosophy palls 
upon us, when we regain our strength, and we yearn 
for the bustle and the fight, — for the strenuous life 
that is only found amidst the crash and clangour of 
human interests and human hostilities. 

XCIV 

Shall we take Browning's verdict on Wordsworth ? 

"AH I can affirm is that I treasure as precious every 
poem written during about the first twenty 
years of the poet's life; after these, the ^Td"swfr?h. 
solution grows weaker, the crystals gleam 
more rarely, and the assiduous stirring up of the mixture Is 
too apparent and obtrusive." 



344 PARERGA 



Or, Professor Jowett's ? — 

" His merits are not exaggerated. At his best, he is so 
extraordinarily good. But the lyrical poems, * We are 
Seven,' ' Lesson to Fathers,' ' Star-Gazers ' are many of 
them poor. 'Lucy Gray' and 'The Pet Lamb' better; 
but the subject is inadequate, too ordinary. I doubt 
whether nature can really supply all the comfort which he 
supposes. The constant reflection on nature is forced, like 
the constant thought about art. You cannot constantly be 
watching clouds, or listening to winds, or catching the 
songs of birds. For a moment they give us repose. But 
the animal enjoyment of the air and light has a great deal 
to do with the refreshment of our spirits." 

xcv 

There is a great deal of sense and truth in these 
observations. And Wordsworth's popularity in 
A xxr 1^ cj 1 our time (confined exclusively to 

A World-Soul. , , i V l l • i , I ^^ ■ 

the thoughtrul and middle-aged) is 
due to the fact that his poetry is restful — for a 
while. It is a sedative for tired brains and nerves. 
He sets you down on a mountain side, or by a 
brook, or beneath a tree, and smooths out the 
wrinkles of care, and soothes you by the peace, un- 
broken save by the murmur of the brook, or the 
music of the wind. Readers go to him for the 
same reason that world-workers, tired from the bur- 
den of toil and responsibility, seek the Alps and 
solitude, or the sea-beach for its quiet. But as the 
Professor says, a healthy mind soon grows tired 
of all this, and yearns for the bustle and action of 
life again. Of course, there is a deeper reason for 
the poet's popularity with such souls as Matthew 
Arnold or George Eliot, namely, that he supplies a 
natural for a supernatural religion. This is a species 



SUMMER 345 



of Buddhism, a belief in a World-Soul^ animating all 
things, but only smitten into consciousness when 
actually incorporated with matter. This Words- 
worth has expressed and embodied in many poems, 
but chiefly in the second stanza in the " Ode on 
Intimations of Immortality." 

XCVI 

This is the Erd-Geist of Goethe that burst upon 
the terrified eye of Faust, and explained first its own 
mission in the memorable and oft- ^he Erd-Geist 
quoted lines commencing : of Goethe. 

"In Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm," 

and ending with the tremendous words : 

** So SchafF' ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit 
Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid." 

I do not know whether the observation has been 
made by others, but it seems certain to me that 
Wordsworth must have borrowed a great deal of 
his philosophy, and not a few of his best lines, from 
the First Part of Faust. At least I think I can 
trace a resemblance in thought and diction between 
many of his most beautiful and lofty reflections 
and similar ideas in Faust. For example : 

** Poet. — Give me, oh ! give me back the days 
When I — I too — I was young. 
And felt as they now feel, each coming hour. 
New consciousness of power. 
Oh, happy, happy time, above all praise. 
Then thoughts on thoughts, and crowding fancies sprung 
And found a language in unbidden lays, 
Unintermitted streams from fountains ever flowing. 



346 PARERGA 



Then as I wandered free 

In every field, for me 
Its thousand flowers were blowing! 
A veil through which I did not see, 
A thin veil o'er the world was thrown. 

In every bud a mystery. 

Magic in everything unknown. 
The field, the grove, the air was haunted. 
And all that age has disenchanted." 

and this, which also resembles Shelley : 

*• Faust. — The courses of the stars to thee 
No longer are a mystery ; 
The thoughts of Nature thou canst seek. 
As spirits with their brothers speak, 
// /■/, it is the planet hour 
Of thy own being.'''' 

or the famous characters in the sign of Macrocosmos : 

" The Worlde of Spirits no clouds conceale, 
Man's eye is dim, it cannot see ; 
Man's heart is dead, it cannot feele. 
Thou, who wouldst know the things that be. 
The Heart of Earth in the sunrise red. 
Bathe, till its stains of Earth are fled." 

One quotation more, so like Wordsworth that one 
could almost believe it was written by him : 

*' Oh ! once in boyhood's happy time. Heaven's love 
Showered down upon me with mysterious kiss 
Hallowing the stillness of the Sabbath-Day ! 
Feelings resistless, incommunicable. 
Yearnings for something that I knew not of. 
Deep meanings in the full tones of the bells. 
Mingled — a prayer was burning ecstasy — 
Drove me a wanderer through the fields and woods ; 
Then tears ran hot and fast — then was the birth 
Of a new life, and a new world for me!''' 



SUMMER 



347 



And this last : 

"Yavst {alone). — Yes, lofty Spirit, thou hast given me all. 
All that I asked of thee, and not in vain. 
In unconsuming fire revealed, hast thou 
Been with me, manifesting gloriously 
Thy Presence — thou hast looked on me with 

love. 
— Hast given me the empire o'er majestic 

Nature ; 
Power to enjoy and feel ! 'T was not alone 
The stranger's short, permitted privilege 
Of momentary wonder that thou gavest. 
No, thou hast given me into her deep breast 
As into a friend's most sacred heart to look. 
Hast brought me to the tribes of living things. 
Thus teaching me to recognise and love 
My brothers in still grove, or air, or stream. 
And when in the wide wood the tempest raves 
And shrieks, and rends the giant pines, uproots. 
Disbranches, and with mad'ning grasp uplifting 
Flings them to earth, and from the hollow hill 
Dull moaning thunders echo their descent; 
Then dost thou lead me to the safe retreat 
Of some low cavern, there exhibiting 
To my awed soul its own mysterious nature ! 
Of my own heart the depths miraculous ! 
Its secret inward being all exposed ! 
And when before my eye the pure moon walks 
High over head, diffusing a soft light. 
Then from the rocks, and over the damp wood 
The pale, bright shadows of the ancient times 
Before me seem to move, and mitigate 
The too severe delight of earnest thought ! " 

XCVII 

It is quite true that Wordsworth, Christian man 
as he was, flung "Wiihelm Meister " across the 
room in a fit of honest and virtuous , . . 

... .... , Plagiarism. 

indignation ; and it is also true that, 

on the suggestions of Emerson, he took up the 



348 PARERGA 



study of the master-mind of Germany again. And 
I cannot think I am mistaken in saying that there 
is every probability that he took the germs of his 
philosophy from that great philosophical poem, 
from which I have quoted, and the First Part of 
which saw the light in 1808. This means no de- 
traction from Wordsworth's honour, no depreciation 
of his genius. It is now admitted that there is and 
can be no such thing as plagiarism in great poets. 
Genius has a right to absorb everything and trans- 
mute it into its own substance and form. No one 
complains that every play that passes under the 
hallowed name of Shakspeare had been actually 
presented on the boards of London theatres long 
before the immortal " link-boy " came up from 
Stratford-on-Avon. And there are very few if any 
of our great singers who can be called original. If 
Coleridge purloined from Schelling, Wordsworth 
might have adapted from " Faust " ; and no one 
has a right to object. 



XCVIII 

But it confirms the opinion that there is a certain 

naturalism in Wordsworth, and a certain seeking 

after repose, which would be surpris- 

Naturalism. . . * , ,, „, .'^ . 

mg m such an excellent Christian 
were he not imbued, like his great compeer, with 
certain forms and doctrines of German transcen- 
dentalism. Coleridge must have influenced Words- 
worth. It was inevitable. And he must have 
indoctrinated him in all those mysteries which then 
passed as religious from the Rhine to the Oder. 
And so, as Marcus Aurelius's " Meditations " is the 
" Gospel for those who do not believe," Words- 



SUMMER 349 



worth's nature and its voices are a religion for 
those who will not accept Christianity. And the 
repose which he finds under the wings of the Erd- 
Geist in mountain, vale, and river, has more resem- 
blance to the Nirvana of the East than to the 
" warfare " and eternal struggle of the spirit which, 
in the Pauline theology, are the daily and hourly 
occupation of the Christian. But that Wordsworth's 
poetry is an opiate, and a useful opiate to tired and 
irritable nerves, especially those of genius, is incon- 
testable ; and hence his poetry will always be a 
manual in the hands of brain-workers, or the weary 
seekers after the solution of problems that are 
insoluble. 



XCIX 

In this connection a few lines from Heinrich 
Heine may be appositely quoted. Speaking of 
Goethe, with his cold, sterile crea- „ . 

1 , . , , 1 . Heine on Goethe. 

tions, and his unwholesome doctrine, 

so warmly and widely revived in our days of " Art 

for Art's sake alone," Heine writes : 

" It is true that Goethe also depicted a few of the great 
struggles of freedom, but he portrayed them as an artist. 
Christian zeal was odious to him, and he turned from it ; 
and the enthusiasm for philosophy, which is characteristic 
of our epoch, he either could not understand, or purposely 
avoided understanding, for fear of ruffling his customary 
tranquillity of mind. In his hands the living spirit became 
dead matter, and he invested it with a lovely and pleasing 
form. . . . The example of the master misled the disciples, 
and there arose in Germany that literary epoch, which I 
once designated as the ' art period,' and which, as I then 
showed, had a most disastrous influence on the political 



350 PARERGA 



development of the German people. At the same time I 
by no means deny the intrinsic worth of the Goethean 
masterpieces. They adorn our beloved fatherland just as 
beautiful statues embellish a garden ; but they are only 
statues after all. One may fall in love with them, but 
they are barren. Goethe's poems do not, like Schiller's, 
beget deeds. Deeds are the offspring of words j but 
Goethe's pretty words are childless. That is the curse of 
all that has originated in mere art." 



Lo ! as I write, the Summer has vanished. The 
days are drawing in with a swiftness and suddenness 
that are startling. How little sun- 
shine there is in human lives ! That 
flushed and ardent maiden, who came to us after 
her gentle sister of the Spring, seems to have simply 
looked in at us in these cold northern climes; and 
then, as if she had discharged a disagreeable duty, 
rushed back to her own native tropics again. And 
still, transient as are her visits here, strange to say, 
but little use is made of them. Hard-worked men, 
who should have rushed away pell-mell from stifling 
cities, from their cobwebbed offices and dingy dun- 
geons, to enjoy the long, sweet, warm days by the 
sea, and the still sweeter evenings and twilights that 
stretch on to midnight, put off" their holidays till the 
days and nights are equal in September, and the 
Winter is rushing in, jangling his fetters and man- 
acles of frost. How explain it? I suppose there 
is only one way, namely, that what man seeks, in 
the long run, is not, pace Wordsworth and Matthew 
Arnold, sea, nor sky, nor plain, nor dumb, cold 
nature at all, but the eternally interesting face of 
his fellow-man, even when seen through a cloud of 



SUMMER 



351 



tobacco-smoke across the green baize of a billiard- 
table in some primitive seaside hotel, or the thick 
atmosphere of a continental train anywhere from 
Calais to Rome. 



CI 

As I closed these random reflections on things in 
general, I sat in my garden in the twilight of a long 
summer evening. The sun had set, 
and the faint light was wavering be- DiSogue" 
tween day and night. A huge bat 
was flying round and round in circles that seemed 
to be grooved for him in the air. Over my head a 
tiny spider hung down on a single thread. There 
was an odour of jasmine and mignonette in the 
warm air. Close to my head was a thick clump of 
laurel; and one white tea-rose hung her beautiful 
petals against it as if for support. On the rim of 
one fair petal was a brown line, the first symptom 
and harbinger of decay. The air was so still I could 
hear her say : 

" Why am I sad ? " you ask. " Because in a few 
weeks, a few days, I shall be dead, — buried there 
beneath the brown earth, whilst you are a perennial, 
an immortal ! " 

"And is death an evil, and is immortality on 
earth a boon .? " asked the spirit of the laurel. 

" Certainly," said the rose. " Even my short life 
beneath the blue sky, kissed by the winds, fanned 
by the wings of birds, has been supremely happy." 

" True, but see what is before me ! " said the 
spirit of the laurel. " I have no Summer like you, 
because I am not a flower. But I have a Winter 
before me, and many, many Winters. Think of 



352 PARERGA 



eight hours of palHd sunshine, and sixteen hours 
of darkness deep as the pit; think of the rough 
winds that tear through me, the frosts that bite me, 
the snows that lean their icy burden on me, the 
lightnings that blast me, the men who shear and 
clip every Httle tiny shoot I put forth, until now, 
in my old age, I am childless and flowerless as the 
grave. Oh, my little sister, grieve not. You have 
been loved. That atones for death. Do not covet 
an immortality of loveless desolation ! " 

And the rose said : 

" Yea. Be it so. Only let me lean against thee 
unto the last." 



The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. 



C74 891 






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